Private Power in the U.S. States: Business Interests and the Design of State-Level Climate and Renewable Energy Policies

Basseches, Joshua

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-hz20-w748

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Private Power in the U.S. States: Business Interests and the Design of State-Level Climate and Renewable Energy Policies

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In the absence of any significant federal policy to mitigate climate change, many (though not all) U.S. states have stepped in to fill the void. But the policies these states have adopted vary considerably in their quality. For example, California’s economy-wide greenhouse gas policy was significantly stronger than Massachusetts’, which was significantly stronger than Oregon’s. All three states also adopted renewable portfolio standards policies that contained extraneous provisions that, using different mechanisms, shifted costs associated with the transition away from fossil fuels, toward renewable sources of electricity. The literature on state-level climate and renewable energy policy is wide-ranging, but does not adequately address the role of business interests in explaining this sort of variation in state-level policy quality. This is surprising, given that explanations for the lack of policy at the federal level often center on the power of private interests. In this dissertation, I develop a new framework that accounts for the policy preferences and political power of the full spectrum of private actors with an interest in these policies. Based on an analysis of legislative and regulatory texts, archival material, and 111 policy-focused interviews with policymakers, public interest advocates, and corporate lobbyists, I find that business actors fell into one of three categories based on their preferences regarding the content of these policies. The most politically powerful of these three categories was the investor-owned utilities, whose preferences, combined with variation in the political power of the remaining two categories across the three states, largely explain this policy variation. My findings contribute to sociological and political science debates about business power and democratic representation as well as empirical studies of state-level environmental policy.

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