According to a widely held economic hypothesis, imposing strict environmental regulations reduces economic growth.  This hypothesis is undermined by the fact that the states with the strictest environmental regulations also have the highest economic growth.  This fact does not show that environmental regulations promote growth, however, since ______.

A) those states with the strictest environmental regulations invest the most in education and job training

B) even those states that have only moderately strict environmental regulations have higher growth than those with the least-strict regulations

C) many states that are experiencing reduced economic growth are considering weakening their environmental regulations

D) after introducing stricter environmental regulations, many states experienced increased economic growth