28 research outputs found
Environmental politics in a polarized America : public mood and policy consequences
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Thesis: Ph. D. in Political Science and Urban and Regional Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2019"Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Department of Political Scinece in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science and Urban and Regional Planning." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages A-57 to A-82).As the American political parties have polarized and nationalized, what are the implications for environmental policy? This question is particularly important at the state and local levels, where many environmental policy decisions are made and implemented, but about which scholars have drawn mixed conclusions. This dissertation enters the debate to expand understanding of the parties' role in state-level regulatory enforcement; describe and assess changing public attitudes about environmental protection; and deeply explore local perceptions of an important type of environmental disruption: energy infrastructure. I begin by exploring the public basis for environmental protection. In paper one, I estimate state-level public opinion about environmental protection from the late 1970s through 2016. I show that regional differences in public views about environmental protection have declined, whereas state publics have sorted more cleanly into partisan camps in every state.I also find that economic tradeoffs have increased in their importance for shaping Americans' environmental views. These data provide a crucial foundation for assessing the evolution of the state and national parties' positions about environmental protection, and exploring the elite rhetoric that may explain the shifting drivers of public environmental preferences. In the second paper, I ask how party control of state government institutions influences regulatory enforcement in the U.S. Despite growing evidence for the parties' influence across the slate of policy issues, scholars have drawn divergent conclusions regarding the parties' impact on state environmental policy. I apply a regression discontinuity design to assess whether party control of state houses and governors' mansions causes a meaningful change in Clean Air Act enforcement between 2000 and 2017.The findings suggest that narrowly elected Republican governors and legislative majorities reduce enforcement effort, and that the two branches' influence differs according to their distinct mechanisms of political control over the bureaucracy. Paper three moves beyond public attitudes about environmental topics in the abstract to assess local views of one particularly salient environmental topic: energy. Public views of energy technologies are critical to the United States' energy future, but party and ideology do not contribute much explanatory power in explaining Americans' views of the energy system. I apply a framework rooted in social psychology to explain how sense of place shapes residents' interpretations and evaluations of large-scale energy transmission infrastructure as a threat or an opportunity.by Parrish Bergquist.Ph. D. in Political Science and Urban and Regional PlanningPh.D.inPoliticalScienceandUrbanandRegionalPlanning Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Plannin
How climate policy commitments influence energy systems and the economies of US states
Abstract In the United States, state governments have been the locus of action for addressing climate change. However, the lack of a holistic measure of state climate policy has prevented a comprehensive assessment of state policies’ effectiveness. Here, we assemble information from 25 individual policies to develop an aggregate index of state climate policies from 2000-2020. The climate policy index highlights variation between states which is difficult to assess in single policy studies. Next, we examine the environmental and economic consequences of state climate policy. A standard-deviation increase in climate policy is associated with a 5% reduction in per-capita electricity-sector CO2 emissions and a 2% reduction in economy-wide CO2 emissions per capita. We do not find evidence that more stringent climate policy harms states’ economies. Our results make clear the benefits of state climate policy, while showing that current state efforts are unlikelyto meet the US goal under the Paris Climate Accord
Examining the effect of cost information and framing on support for methane regulations in Europe
Methane abatement policies will play an important role in mitigating climate change given the high global-warming potential of methane compared to carbon dioxide. Yet evidence on public attitudes and support for methane regulations is lacking. In partnership with the Clean Air Task Force, we develop an original nationally representative survey of four European countries ( N  = 5629) to show variation in public opinions about methane emissions and policy to reduce them. Using a framing experiment, we test variation in these preferences as a function of policy impacts on cost, global climate change, local pollution, or energy security. We find largely null effects across the board: attitudes are remarkably durable to varying treatments, suggesting that support for methane regulations is not sensitive to cost information and policy framing. The results from this survey provide a much-needed baseline for public attitudes about methane abatement and will inform existing debates on what information is and is not effective in generating support for ambitious methane policy
Replication Data for: Does Global Warming Increase Public Concern About Climate Change?
Replication data
Combining Climate, Economic, and Social Policy Builds Political Support for Climate Action in the US
Combining climate, economic, and social policy builds public support for climate action in the US
Despite the gravity of the climate threat, governments around the world have struggled to pass and implement climate policies. Today, politicians and advocates are championing a new idea: linking climate policy to other economic and social reforms. Will this approach generate greater public support for climate action? Here, we test this coalition-building strategy. Using two conjoint experiments on a representative sample of 2,476 Americans, we evaluate the marginal impact of 40 different climate, social, and economic policies on support for climate reforms. Overall, we find climate policy bundles that include social and economic reforms such as affordable housing, a $15 minimum wage, or a job guarantee increase US public support for climate mitigation. Clean energy standards, regardless of which technologies are included, also make climate policy more popular. Linking climate policy to economic and social issues is particularly effective at expanding climate policy support among people of color
Backyard voices: How sense of place shapes views of large-scale energy transmission infrastructure
While scholars have assessed the drivers of public views of electricity gener-ation infrastructure, attention to transmission infrastructure has been limited.Moreover, economic benefits are often wielded to garner public support in sitingdebates, but questions remain about what shapes local perceptions of economicimpacts. We examine how the symbolic content and geographic scale of placesentiments shape residents’ interpretations and evaluations of proposed trans-mission infrastructure projects as a threat or an opportunity. We draw fromin-depth interviews with public officials, residents, landowners, and stakeholdersin communities along the routes of two proposed energy transmission projects inthe American Midwest. Symbolic meanings, including but not limited to thosereflecting economic identities, inform interpretation of project impacts and eval-uations of the projects as threats or opportunities. Place meanings at the local,state, and national scales also help define the values through which respondentsevaluate the projects
Framing Renewable Energy
An experiment comparing different renewable energy frames in audiences of Democrats and Republicans, respectively