Neoliberal Climate Policy in the United States: from Market Fetishism to the Developmental State
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Neoliberal Climate Policy in the United States: From Market Fetishism to the Developmental State Robert MacNeil Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the PhD degree in Political Science School of Political Studies Faculty of Social Sciences University of Ottawa © Robert MacNeil, Ottawa, Canada, 2012 Abstract The research question animating this project is ‘what is the nature of neoliberalism’s influence on recent and contemporary US climate change policy?’ Situating itself against several growing bodies of literature which have sought to underscore the fetishism of markets in recent environmental and climate policy agendas under neoliberalism – e.g., the work of Heynen et al (2007) on ‘neoliberal environments’; Paterson and Newell’s (2010) work on neoliberalism and carbon markets; and the work of Dryzek et al (2003) on state forms and ecological modernization – this project argues that any such analysis must be predicated on a considerably more nuanced conception of (a) ‘neoliberalism’, (b) the historic role of states in fostering accumulation, and (c) the nature of policy development within any specific neoliberal context. Applying these theoretical re-conceptualizations to the American context, the project argues that a central tension informing contemporary US climate policy under neoliberalism can be understood a stand-off between two prevailing logics in the federal policy process: on the one hand, Washington’s attempt to build on its tradition of using state power to foster high-tech market development by cultivating the alternative energy realm as a developmental state project, and on the other, the anti-regulationist bent of neoliberalism which seeks to delegitimize the ‘pull’ policies required to ‘creatively destroy’ conventional energy and animate domestic alternative energy markets. Against the general conception of the US as a ‘climate laggard’ whose policy options are restricted market mechanisms and generally anathema to progressive ecological modernization, this body of work shows how the US has managed to develop a robust set of interventionist ‘push’ and ‘pull’ climate policies along ‘alternative policy pathways’, despite the prevailing anti-state rhetoric of neoliberalism. 2 Table of contents Part I: Conceptualizing US Climate Policy under Conditions of Neoliberalism Chapter 1 American Climate Policy, the Developmental State 9 & Neoliberalism Chapter 2 Literature Review: Critical Political Economy Depictions 33 of US Climate Policy Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework: Four Theses on the Logics 52 of American Climate Policy Part II: Competing Logics in American Climate Policy Chapter 4 The American Developmental State: A Brief History 77 Chapter 5 Neoliberalism, Anti-Regulationism & Climate Change 111 Part III: The Political Engine behind Climate Innovation Chapter 6 Pull Policies: Alternative Routes to Climate Regulation 145 in the US Chapter 7 Push Policies: The Developmental State and Alternative 174 Energy Technologies Part IV: Political Tensions of Technology-Centric Climate Policies Chapter 8 Reshaping selectivities: Enduring Tensions of American 220 Climate Regulation Chapter 9 Conclusion 239 Bibliography 252 3 List of tables and figures Tables 4.1 Selected developmental state legislation and major programming initiatives 5.1 Common barriers to novel energy technology deployment 5.2 Coal producing states by metric tone 5.3 Proposed major climate bills in US Congress, 2003-2010 5.4 Selected non-comprehensive climate bills in the US Congress, 1999-2010 6.1 Alternative energy tax policies, 1990-2010 6.2 Alternative technology incentives passed through appropriations riders 6.3 List of state-level pull policies 7.1 NCCTI targeting apparatus 7.2 NCCTI program areas as of 2009 7.3 Developmental activities within individual agencies through CCTP 7.4 Select developmental programs 7.5 ARPA-E programs 7.6 IMPAACT projects 7.7 CCTP research and networking groups 7.8 Public-private R&D and commercialization coordination programs 7.9 USCAR consortia relevant to climate and energy 7.10 Selected successful transfers 8.1 Proposed legislation to block EPA regulation of GHGs, 112th Congress 8.2 Selected industry suits aimed at blocking federal climate regulation Figures 4.1 R&D 100 award winners from the Fortune 500 4 6.1 Alternative climate pathways – structural inscription and relevant actors 6.2 Increased use of appropriations riders in the US Congress, 1995-2009 6.2 Selected examples of statutory climate suits against the Federal Government 5 Acknowledgments This project (as well as the successful completion of my doctoral studies broadly) would not have been possible without the help and support of several amazing friends, family members, and institutions. First and foremost, I’d like to thank Matthew Paterson (supervisor, friend) for his constant encouragement and assistance throughout this process. It’s very hard to imagine how this would have worked out in his absence. It was a blessing and privilege to work with someone who willed my success, and never missed an opportunity to demonstrate that. A very special thanks to Jacquie Best and Fred Block, both of whom helped to round out an infrastructure of support, assistance and encouragement that made it almost impossible to fail at this endeavor. Thanks to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for lifting me from the depths of student poverty, as well as the United States Fulbright Foundation for the financial assistance and the amazing opportunity to spend a year in sunny Berkeley. Thank you to the good folks at Peet’s Coffee & Tea (specifically the Telegraph and Shattuck street locations) in Berkeley California for consistently turning a blind eye to your company’s loitering policies. I completed at least two-thirds of this dissertation whilst sipping on your remarkably full-bodied Arabian mocha java throughout late 2010 and 2011 – easily the happiest time of my entire life. Thank you, I suppose, to providence, fortune, and randomness. The overwhelming majority of personal success and failure is determined structurally by institutional life chances that I had no role in shaping. I am well aware of this, and deeply humbled by it. Finally, a million thank yous as always to mom, dad, K-pod, Ev, C-bass, and Christina. Shoulders of giants, and all that. 6 For my dad, the wisest person I’ve yet known. This book brings to a logical conclusion a conversation we started at the dining room table in Big Bay Point in April 2007. 7 Part I Conceptualizing US Climate Policy under Conditions of Neoliberalism 8 Chapter one American climate policy, the developmental state & neoliberalism American climate change policy is a rather strange thing. There are indeed few other countries in the world that bring to bear quite such a diverse and often contradictory range of factors influencing the shape of its climate politics. In addition to being a rabid fossil fuel addict – accounting for close to 25 percent of the planet’s energy usage (USEIA 2011)1 – and maintaining close to a quarter of the world’s known coal reserves (BP 2011), the United States simultaneously maintains one of the most open systems of Congressional lobbying in the Western world (where conventional energy interests are able to exert immense influence over the policy process); a highly disaggregated political system that is largely anathema to the passage of large-scale regulatory programs; a non-proportionally represented Senate where fossil-fuel producing states are able to leverage their power to block national climate regulation; and a two-party federal system in which one party has built its entire governing philosophy around anti-regulationism. Indeed, even a cursory scan of some of these features helps to render one considerably more sympathetic to the obstinate nature of US climate politics over the past 20 years. On the other hand, however, there remains an array of relatively equal and opposite factors keeping the push for climate regulation firmly on the national agenda. First, though it is easy to forget, the US is the birthplace of the modern environmental movement and ‘green 1 Approximately 83 percent of this is based on fossil fuels. 37 percent of this comes from petroleum, 25 percent from natural gas, and 21 percent from coal. The US is the second largest gross consumer of energy on the planet, and seventh in terms of per capita energy consumption (a statistic which moves closer to first overall if one includes the energy consumed in the production of foreign-made products that are purchased and used in the US). 9 administrative state’ – a heritage which continues to inform the considerable strength of the domestic climate movement to this day (Steffof 2002; Sale 1993; Bomberg and Schlosberg 2008).2 Second, given the multiple points of access to the US legislative process, legislative gridlock on climate has served to open up a large and robust climate policy arena along ‘alternative policy pathways’ (Klyza and Sousa 2008). This has allowed climate policy to be established through strategies like sub-national policy implementation, the use of executive authority, clever use of legislative riders on appropriations bills, and the use of litigation to impose juridical obligations upon the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases, among many others. Third, America is the not-so-proud parent of the policy mechanism that has stood at the centre of contemporary international climate governance: the