Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T15:01:33.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Electric utilities and American climate policy: lobbying by expected winners and losers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

Sung Eun Kim ,
Johannes Urpelainen  and
Joonseok Yang
Sung Eun Kim
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Columbia University, USA E-mail: sk3400@columbia.edu
Johannes Urpelainen
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Columbia University, USA E-mail: ju2178@columbia.edu.
Joonseok Yang
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Columbia University, USA E-mail: jy2385@columbia.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When and why do individual companies lobby on environmental policies? Given the structural strength of business interests, the answer to this question is important for explaining policy. However, evidence on the strategic lobbying behaviour of individual companies remains scarce. We use data from lobbying disclosure reports on all major climate bills introduced during the 111th Congress (2009–2010). We then link the lobbying disclosure reports to detailed data on the fuel choices of all electric utilities in the United States along with socioeconomic, institutional and political data from the states where the utilities operate. The expected winners (renewable energy, natural gas users) from climate policy are much more likely to lobby individually on federal legislation than the expected losers (coal users). We find that expected winners lobby for specific provisions and rents as a private good, whereas expected losers concentrate their efforts on collective action through trade associations and committees to prevent climate legislation. The results suggest that the supporters of climate policy believed the probability of federal climate legislation to be nontrivial.

Keywords

American politicsclimate policyenergyenvironmental politicslobbying
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 36 , Supplement 2 , June 2016 , pp. 251 - 275
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press, 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akaike, H. (1998) Information Theory and an Extension of the Maximum Likelihood Principle. In Parzen, E., Tanabe, K. and Kitagawa, G. (eds.), Selected Papers of Hirotugu Akaike. New York, NY: Springer, 199–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austen-Smith, D. and Wright, J. R. (1992) Competitive Lobbying for a Legislator’s Vote. Social Choice and Welfare 9(3): 229–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, F. R., Berry, J. M., Hojnacki, M., Leech, B. L. and Kimball, D. C. (2009) Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, F. R. and Leech, B. L. (1998) Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and in Political Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bendor, J. and Mookherjee, D. (1987) Institutional Structure and the Logic of Ongoing Collective Action. American Political Science Review 81(1): 129–154.Google Scholar
Bernhagen, P. (2008) Business and International Environmental Agreements: Domestic Sources of Participation and Compliance by Advanced Industrialized Democracies. Global Environmental Politics 8(1): 78–110.Google Scholar
Boehmke, F. J., Gailmard, S. and Patty, J. W. (2013) Business as Usual: Interest Group Access and Representation Across Policy-Making Venues. Journal of Public Policy 33(1): 3–33.Google Scholar
Bombardini, M. (2008) Firm Heterogeneity and Lobby Participation. Journal of International Economics 75(2): 329–348.Google Scholar
Bombardini, M. and Trebbi, F. (2012) Competition and Political Organization: Together or Alone in Lobbying for Trade Policy? Journal of International Economics 87(1): 18–26.Google Scholar
Bunea, A. (2013) Issues, Preferences and Ties: Determinants of Interest Groups’ Preference Attainment in the EU Environmental Policy. Journal of European Public Policy 20(4): 552–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheon, A. and Urpelainen, J. (2013) How do Competing Interest Groups Influence Environmental Policy? The Case of Renewable Electricity in Industrialized Democracies, 1989–2007. Political Studies 61(4): 874–897.Google Scholar
Culpepper, P. D. (2010) Quiet Politics and Business Power: Corporate Control in Europe and Japan. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
de Figueiredo, J. M. and Richter, B. K. (2014) Advancing the Empirical Research on Lobbying. Annual Review of Political Science 17: 163–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Figueiredo, J. M. and Tiller, E. H. (2001) The Structure and Conduct of Corporate Lobbying: How Firms Lobby the Federal Communications Commission. Journal of Economics and Management Strategy 10(1): 91–122.Google Scholar
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (2009) Preliminary Analysis of the Waxman-Markey Discussion Draft: The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 in the 111th Congress, EPA, http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/Downloads/EPAactivities/WM-Analysis.pdf Google Scholar
Exelon (2009) Exelon CEO Urges Action on Sensible Climate Legislation this Year Despite Current Economic Uncertainty, press release, 15 May, http://www.exeloncorp.com/newsroom/pr 20090515.aspx (accessed 30 November 2014). Google Scholar
Ferejohn, J. A. (1974) Pork Barrel Politics: Rivers and Harbors Legislation, 1947–1968. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Galanter, M. (1974) Why the “Haves” Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change. Law and Society Review 9(1): 95–169.Google Scholar
Gilligan, M. J. (1997) Lobbying as a Private Good with Intra-Industry Trade. International Studies Quarterly 41(3): 455–474.Google Scholar
Grossman, G. M. and Helpman, E. (1994) Protection for Sale. American Economic Review 84(4): 833–850.Google Scholar
Gullberg, A. T. (2008) Lobbying Friends and Foes in Climate Policy: The Case of Business and Environmental Interest Groups in the European Union. Energy Policy 36(8): 2964–2972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, W. L., Mitchell, N. J. and Drope, J. M. (2005) The Logic of Private and Collective Action. American Journal of Political Science 49(1): 150–167.Google Scholar
Hart, D. M. (2004) “Business” is Not an Interest Group: On the Study of Companies in American National Politics. Annual Review of Political Science 7: 47–69.Google Scholar
Hirsh, R. F. (1999) Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hojnacki, M., Kimball, D. C., Baumgartner, F. R., Berry, J. M. and Leech, B. L. (2012) Studying Organizational Advocacy and Influence: Reexamining Interest Group Research. Annual Review of Political Science 15: 379–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Izzo, R. (2009) Testimony of Ralph Izzo, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Sub-Committee on Energy and Environment, 26 February, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Keohane, N. O., Revesz, R. L. and Stavins, R. N. (1998) The Choice of Regulatory Instruments in Environmental Policy. Harvard Environmental Law Review 22(2): 313–367.Google Scholar
Magee, C. (2002) Endogenous Trade Policy and Lobby Formation: An Application to the Free-Rider Problem. Journal of International Economics 57(2): 449–471.Google Scholar
Mahoney, C. (2007) Networking vs. Allying: The Decision of Interest Groups to Join Coalitions in the US and the EU. Journal of European Public Policy 14(3): 366–383.Google Scholar
Mahoney, C. (2008) Brussels Versus the Beltway: Advocacy in the United States and the European Union. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, C. J. (1989) Business Influence and State Power: The Case of U.S. Corporate Tax Policy. Politics and Society 17(2): 189–223.Google Scholar
McFarland, A. S. (1984) Energy Lobbies. Annual Review of Energy 9: 501–527.Google Scholar
Michaelowa, A. (2005) The German Wind Energy Lobby: How to Promote Costly Technological Change Successfully. European Environment 15(3): 192–199.Google Scholar
Milner, H. V. (1988) Resisting Protectionism: Global Industries and the Politics of International Trade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, M. (1965) The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Point Carbon. (2009) Carbon Exposure: Winners and Losers in a US Carbon Market, Point Carbon Research, Carbon Market Analyst North America, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Progress Energy. (2009) Progress Energy CEO Provides a Statement on Evolving Climate and Energy Bill, press release, 18 May, http://www.markey.senate.gov/GlobalWarming/files/LTTR/ACES/Exelon.pdf (accessed 30 November 2014). Google Scholar
Russo, M. V. (2001) Institutions, Exchange Relations, and the Emergence of New Fields: Regulatory Policies and Independent Power Production in America, 1978–1992. Administrative Science Quarterly 46(1): 57–86.Google Scholar
Sandler, T. and Tschirhart, J. T. (1980) The Economic Theory of Clubs: An Evaluative Survey. Journal of Economic Literature 18(4): 1481–1521.Google Scholar
Sine, W. D., Haveman, H. A. and Tolbert, P. S. (2005) Risky Business? Entrepreneurship in the New Independent-Power Sector. Administrative Science Quarterly 50(2): 200–232.Google Scholar
Tomz, M., Wittenberg, J. and King, G. (2003) CLARIFY: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results. Journal of Statistical Software 8(1): 1–30.Google Scholar
Vogel, D. (1996) Kindred Strangers: The Uneasy Relationship Between Politics and Business in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Kim supplementary material

Kim supplementary material 1

Download Kim supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 127.2 KB