Short Circuiting Policy

In 1999, Texas passed a landmark clean energy law, beginning a groundswell of new policies that promised to make the US a world leader in renewable energy. As Leah Stokes shows in Short Circuiting Policy, however, that policy did not lead to momentum in Texas, which failed to implement its solar laws or clean up its electricity system. Examining clean energy laws in Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Ohio over a thirty-year time frame, Stokes argues that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why states are not on track to address the climate crisis. She tells the political history of our energy institutions, explaining how fossil fuel companies and electric utilities have promoted climate denial and delay. Stokes further explains the limits of policy feedback theory, showing the ways that interest groups drive retrenchment through lobbying, public opinion, political parties and the courts. More than a history of renewable energy policy in modern America, Short Circuiting Policy offers a bold new argument about how the policy process works, and why seeming victories can turn into losses when the opposition has enough resources to roll back laws.

"Short Circuiting Policy examines clean energy policies to understand why US states are not on track to meet the climate crisis. After two decades of leadership, American states are slipping in their commitment to transitioning away from dirty fossil fuels towards cleaner energy sources, including wind and solar. I argue that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why US states have stopped expanding and even started weakening their renewable energy policies. Fossil fuel companies and electric utilities played a key role in spreading climate denial. Now, they have turned to climate delay, working to block clean energy policies from passing or being implemented, and driving retrenchment. Clean energy advocates typically lack sufficient power to overcome electric utilities' opposition to climate policy. Short Circuiting Policy builds on policy feedback theory, showing the conditions under which retrenchment is more likely. Depending on their relative political influence, interest groups will work to drive retrenchment either directly by working with legislators, their staff and regulators; or, indirectly through the parties, the public and the courts. I also argue that policies likely effects are not easy to predict-an effect I term "the fog of enactment." But overtime, federated interest groups can learn to anticipate policies' consequences through networks that cross states-lines. Examining US energy policy over the past century, and Texas, Kansas, Arizona and Ohio's clean energy laws over the past two decades, I show how opponents have thwarted progress on climate policy"--

Stokes has written a highly readable and compelling book that will be of interest to environmental policy scholars and the general public alike -- Saleem H. Ali, Science Mag

This is a book of the very first importance, a stunningly good piece of investigation that lays bare the answer to what may be the world's most important mystery: why are we moving so slowly to address the greatest crisis the planet has ever faced? It should be read-and memorized-by everyone who deals with energy policy in any way, shape, or form. -- Bill McKibben, Middlebury College

With Washington gridlocked or worse, advocates for action on climate change have looked to the states for leadership. In this deeply researched and sobering analysis, Leah Stokes shows why these hopes must be combined with vigilance and tenacity. Even where states have managed to introduce innovative reforms, Stokes shows, deeply entrenched and resourceful fossil fuel interests can often regain the upper hand. -- Paul Pierson, University of California-Berkeley

With US national politics deadlocked under right-wing dominance, crucial battles over clean energy are playing out in the states. In this brilliant new book, Leah Stokes spells out exactly how and why entrenched interests can take advantage of weak, ambiguous laws to achieve costly delays and hobble infant clean energy sources. All citizens fighting for effective responses to global warming should heed the lessons in this book-and scholars studying policy battles in many other realms have much to learn from it as well. -- Theda R. Skopol, Harvard University and Scholars Strategy Network