As climate change and the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions play an increasingly important role in the global policy debate, careful consideration of the state-level determinants driving emissions must be considered. The importance of state-level determinants in the transmission of carbon dioxide matters especially for a country that differs from coast to coast in energy use and industry makeup like the United States. To add to the policy debate this paper estimates two models that account for the dynamic nature of emissions of carbon dioxide emissions at the state-level from 1980-2010 while taking account of scale, technique, and composition effects. When stochastic trends are taken account of, an environmental Kuznets curve relationship with a feasible turning point is found for carbon dioxide emissions. Published by Elsevier Ltd.