The major purposes were to ascertain legislators' perceptions of intergovernmental relations for policy issues and to seek an explanation for these perceptions. The study found that the greater the perceived seriousness of sewage treatment, water pollution, open space preservation, water supply and planning and zoning problems, the greater the preference for a governmental policy emphasizing shared responsibility among local, state and federal governments. On the other hand, the majority of the legislators perceived 'traditional' land use and water resource problems--droughts, drainage and floods--not to be as severe as the 'contemporary' problems. Therefore, the legislators preferred to have only a single level of government be responsible for solving the problem. The second major area of analysis dealt with the degree to which state, federal and local governments were to be involved in either competitive or cooperative intergovernmental relations. Legislators seem to regard the state as the unit of government where basic responsibility for domestic problem solution should be located when the problem is not severe; but this attachment to the state decreases as problem intensity increases.