The Climate Crisis: Politics and Public Policy
PSC 8229 Politics and Public Policy
Dr. Elizabeth Rigby
Fall 2021
Carl Mackensen
Policy Application V
12/23/2021
The Climate Crisis: Politics and Public Policy
I: Introduction
The Climate Crisis poses an existential threat to humanity, as well as all life on Earth. It is truly perhaps the most salient and defining issue of our times, and what we do over the next decade will prove vital to keeping the planet from warming too greatly, and all that that would impact. Economists propose a simple and, according to them, effective means of changing the situation for the better for all members of society; namely, putting a price on carbon emissions. Such an action would impact every aspect of humanity, from electricity generation to buying habits on locally versus internationally sourced avocados. Why is this the case? Because, according to Economists, if you want to do less of something, or buy less of something, then making that thing more expensive is the simplest and most efficacious means of doing so. There is debate about the exact nature of what the price would look like, whether a simple command and control (CAC) tax, or a cap and trade (CAT) program similar to what the United States of America did for sulfur dioxide as an amendment to the Clean Air Act. This debate is present in the confines of this paper in so far as it has a bearing on the politics and policy landscape, though the main issues examined deal with said landscape. What I examine here is why federal legislation on the issue has stalled, who the players are and how they operate, and what recommendations can be made. In short, I examine the politics and policy of the issue as it currently stands at the time of writing. Specifically, I concentrate on the USA, though comparisons to other countries can be illustrative.
II: Issues with Federal Legislation
A price on carbon is not anathema to US politics. There are regions in the country that already employ one or another scheme by which a price on carbon takes place. Specifically, California and the 11 member states of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the northeast of the country both have prices on carbon, through different mechanisms and laws, which results in less emissions. Many European countries also have prices on carbon, usually significantly higher ones than in the US areas mentioned. Why, then, is it so difficult for the United States of America to pass federal legislation that would enact such a mechanism?
Simply put, because there has been a historic effort by special interest groups that benefit from the status quo to deny even the basic science of the issue. Specifically, we can be informed by the work of Schattschneider in the piece The Semi-Sovereign People by Donald Studler. In this piece, it is detailed how the primary group represented in federal legislation and action are business groups, which work with the Republican party to maintain the status quo and continue to enjoy special treatment. These groups are well represented, and actively work to prevent new issues or legislation that would threaten their dominance, or way of existing. They prevent the issues from even entering the public sphere in the form of debate, and generally dominant the discourse. Additionally, the privatization and socialization of the issue is examined. This language does not refer to whether goods and services are provided by the free market or a government program, but rather whether the actors taking place in the discourse and action around an issue are ‘private’, such as the status quo where it is just special interests and the Republican party, or ‘public’, such as including the general populous or activists. Public action on an issue can prove vital to the success of putting something on an agenda and moving that agenda forward, and different actors at the legislative level can either gain or lose by making said debate and agenda setting more public or private.
First, before examining each of these claims in turn, it is instructive to briefly detail some history of the issue by way of a precis. Evidence of the greenhouse effect resulting from emission of greenhouse gases has been present for at least over a century. For quite some time, however, it was not well known or understood, and the USA and other countries used fossil fuels to power their industrial revolutions. Starting in roughly the early 1990’s, scientists began to sound the alarm that the process of wantonly emitting as much as we would like into the atmosphere could have dire consequences. By the first decade of the 2000’s, this was quite well understood. By the time of the Paris Climate Accord in 2015, this was so well understood that many countries, with the prompting of the UN IPCC, pledged to significantly decrease their emissions, which stalled under the Trump administration and sputtered during the recent UN COP meeting in Glasgow of 2021, despite the Biden administration making action a centerpiece of its Build Back Better spending package. Currently, at the time of writing, that legislation, though passed in the House, will not move forward in the Senate thanks to the razor thin majority of 50 to 50 senators split between the parties, and a single democrat, Manchin, defecting from the party on the issue.
It is informative to examine each of Schattschneider theories in turn, and apply them to the climate crisis. Firstly, regarding special interests and the Republican party. Thanks to both organizations working in concert, even the basic science of the climate crisis has been in question among the populous. In no other industrialized and developed democratic country that I know of, when speaking of either left wing or right wing parties, is the science up for debate. Perhaps what is to be done about it still dominates discourse and discussion, but the basic science is decided, and referenced. The special interests working with the Republican party have done such a thorough job of misinforming the public that those who identify as Republican view the climate crisis as fabricated, as former President Trump called it a ‘Chinese hoax.’ If they do not view it as outrightly wrong, then they view action on the topic as so detrimental to the current economy as to be cost prohibitive, never mind that the global potential damages of inaction are estimated to fall in the tens of trillions of dollars. This works to the advantage of those who want to keep the status quo of relying on fossil fuels and emitting as much as possible. Regarding the socializing or privatizing of debate on the issue, the Republican party wants discourse on the issue to remain private to maintain the status quo, and progressive Democrats are fueled by the increasingly public actions of protestors and activists.
III: Bipartisanship
This is not to say that bipartisanship is dead generally, or on this issue specifically. In the book The Limits of Party, Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era, it is detailed how, despite the current climate feeling more partisan than ever in living memory, federal legislators do still work cooperatively and pass legislation in a bipartisan manner. The authors do this by looking at congressional voting records of numerous kinds, and performing statistical analyses on them. They supplement their analytics with interviews with professionals in the know, which they often add after they present their analytics. In essence, the authors argue that things have changed little. Their position is that party control does not result in more legislative successes, and that laws are not passed on a strictly partisan basis. Minority support is needed at least as much as in the 1970s, and the majority party fails to pass their priorities routinely. They do stipulate that parties are for the most part more homogenous in terms of ideology than in the past and look at whether this failure to pass priorities is due to minority party opposition, or the diminishment of discipline within the party. They found that veto points by the minority were not the cause of this legislative failure, but instead coalition building within the party and a lack of party cohesion being sourced as the cause. It is also found that trying to overpower the minority does not result in success, but rather that bipartisanship is imperative.
This can certainly be seen to be the case with the BBB bill currently in the Senate, and the lack of support of Manchin, which proves enough to completely stop the progression of the legislation. It may prove to be the case that a separate, stand alone bill on the climate crisis, with support of not just Democrats but also a number of centrist Republicans, could prove to be a better vehicle forward.
But what would this look like? Again, as referenced above, we can look to both the states in the USA that have already acted on the issue, as well as countries abroad such as those in the EU. A core question is whether and to what degree the legislation should use market mechanisms, which centrists and Republicans are more likely to support, or a government command and control (CAC) tax or prohibition, which those on the left are more likely to support. This debate can be informed by looking at Good Enough for Government Work: The Public Reputation Crisis in American (and What we can do to Fix it) by Lerman. In this book, it is essentially argued that, in the past, government work was considered one of the highest standards of performance. More recently, however, perception of government work has degraded. It is now seen that, when a service is good, it is a private one, and when a service is poor, it is a public one, despite counter examples in each circumstance. As such, many support a cap and trade (CAT) program which employs market mechanisms over a more traditional CAC approach. Despite CAT being shown to work quite effectively for sulfur dioxide emissions, many on the left still support a CAC approach, being uncomfortable with the concept of issuing permits for emissions which is construed as a license for emitting at all.
IV: Public versus Private Methods
The advantage of a CAT approach is that, with trading of permits, what emissions are produced will be at or lower than the cap (which can be set at anything), and that as a result of market behavior and the trading of permits, those emissions that take place will go to the most economically advantageous aspects of society in terms of provision of goods and services. In essence, for those for which it is more costly to emit than abate, they will abate, and trade permits with those for which it is cheaper to buy permits than retrofit their operations. Again, this has the advantages described above. Alternatively, for CAC methods, the advantage is that sometimes the decarbonization that is most needed is not what is the low hanging economic fruit, and that time and consistent action is required for transformational change, such as with the move to renewables in the grid. Supporters of this fiat approach to either taxation or emissions limiting argue that we should simply ban emissions full stop, and have a number of regulations in place to do so.
The piece on Wilson wherein he looks at both markets and government is also instructive. Wilson puts forward that markets are more efficient than governments, but that there is still great power in government workers doing what they were hired to do. Agency capture is examined similarly to Schattschneider, though Wilson puts forward that it is a complex process. Wilson would argue that both strong markets and strong government are needed, with each doing their respective parts to ameliorate the situation. The efficiency of the CAT program would be welcomed, while the regulation of emissions could be done by policymakers and government workers. Perhaps he would argue for a two-pronged approach, or for both CAT and CAC policies.
In reality, both a CAT or tax, or regulations, can be effective. Things like tax credits or CAC techniques that take action on the topic are usually a result of compromises between the parties in terms of what their ideal legislation would be. As described above, bipartisanship is not dead, and there may be many avenues available for action on the issue at the federal level, if not in the BBB bill, then in some stand alone piece that garners more wide spread support in both Houses of congress. The barriers to moving forward, as described above in the detailing of the current political environment, are mainly around defection of Democrats from supporting a bill, and the capture of Republicans by special interests. Again, this can be ameliorated by broadening the theater from a privatized one to a more public one. In fact, we are seeing exactly that with the emergence of organizations like the Fridays for the Future movement of which Greta Thunberg is the de facto leader, and domestically the Sunrise Movement, which focuses on electing those in favor of the Green New Deal (GND).
The piece by Harrison on carbon emissions is also relevant. Harrison argues that CAT and taxes would be a better option than CAC policies. Market-based policy proponents such as centrists and even some Republicans would agree with this, though those who favor more CAC policies do not. Looking at Finland, Denmark, Germany, and Canada as case studies, the author argues that a tax is optimal. Policy entrepreneurship is needed and the voting public must be made aware of the issues as well. Policy entrepreneurship is the concept that there needs to be a safe space for policymakers to act in and put forward powerful ideas and a role for government action.
V: Where Do We Go from Here?
Kingdon offers some advice to activists, as well as policy makers, in the piece discussing Agendas. The first is to know your place. This entails being aware of where you stand in the policy process and how you can best operate. The second is to persist and be opportunistic. You must persevere through the hard times, and then when faced with an advantageous situation, capitalize on it. Third is to understand other streams. Sometimes, there is a window for action. At this point, collaboration with members of other streams may have already passed by the realm of possibility. It is always important, therefore, to cultivate these relationships not just because they are good to have in and of themselves, but because they can be enormously useful when the time is right. Whether it be policy entrepreneurs, politicians, or journalists, attempt to make connections. Oftentimes networks are already established, and may greatly influence the course of events. Lastly, accept chance. How would all of this advice apply to something like the FFF movement? Know that you are a movement of young people, continue to maintain pressure on those who are responsible, capitalize on opportunities, keep discourse with those of diverse backgrounds and positions, and accept the randomness inherent in what you are doing.
Olson’s piece on organizations and free riding is also relevant. It is argued that group joiners of publicly minded individuals are not just making a cost benefit calculation, but may choose to act for a number of reasons. Collective action is generally defined as any action by a group of people on a single issue, which often relates to free riding, or group members gaining the benefits of action without doing any of the requisite work. This is important to understanding how issues are brought to the fore. In reference to the climate crisis, action is, at its core, a collective action question that also involves free ridership. Whether it takes the forms of countries discussing emissions target at international venues like COP, or local activists marching in the streets, it is all too easy to allow personal action (whether on behalf of a country or by an individual) to be discouraged by the belief that nothing can be achieved, or that the issue will be taken up by others, or that action should not be taken until other parties, such as those responsible for the issue in the first place, take up action. All of this is defeatist thinking, and negates the very real change that collective action on an issue can bring about, regardless of the level of action. For anyone promoting action on the climate crisis, they have likely gone through a state of depression or anxiety about the state of affairs and the future that was almost paralyzing. How could anything an individual does matter? It is instructive in this moment to think of the practical application of a particularly theory of Ethics, which is the discipline that, more than try to dominate an individual’s life with rules, seeks to ameliorate human flourishing. According to Mill, a Consequentialist, we must act as if our actions would be generalized to all of society. We do not shoplift, we vote, we obey traffic laws, because were everyone not to we would all surely be worse off. The same applies to action on climate, and, interestingly, those who are involved with FFF or the Sunrise Movement largely already accept that we all must do our part. Collective action and the free rider problem are not really issues for these young people, they are simply motivated by the desire to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, the same cannot always be said of election minded legislators. Here, bold action is needed, and the tools described above are most salient for how that can be brought about.
Punctuated equilibrium as described by Baumgartner and Jones can also be applied to the climate crisis, and what to do about it. They put forward that change is not linear, but rather takes place in fits and starts, in a form they describe as punctuated equilibrium. Within the policy process, instability may take place as a result of the way agendas are set by relevant participants. Change can take place rapidly when the circumstances are right. What makes this so is highly dependent on who the players are. Specifically for the climate crisis, this would be both organizations like FFF and the Sunrise Movement, as well as policy entrepreneurs such as AOC and the members of her cohort. There are times when, for whatever reason, the public is open to broad changes. Most often this is during crises. With the coronavirus ravaging the world’s population, there is much on the table for action that wasn’t there before. Progressive legislators and grassroots advocates alike should seize this opportunity for what it is worth, and attempt to work not only on how to get out of our current situation, but to lay the foundation for change that we so desperately need on climate.
VI: Conclusion
The Chinese phrase, “may you live in interesting times” originally had more of the ring of a curse to it than a benediction. These are certainly interesting times. Another Chinese maxim comes to mind when digesting the issue thoroughly, however, that crisis and opportunity have the same character in the written language. There is the larger scope of the trade off of what this debate is actually over. Jason Bordoff, a former Obama administration professional working now at Columbia SIPA, that I had for US Energy Policy, said that when considering a policy you had to look at not just the environmental impact, but also the economic and national security ones as well. This is certainly the case for action on the climate crisis, whether it is a price on carbon or otherwise.
We will have to make some hard decisions in the coming years, including what our consumptive lifestyle does to our natural environment, what is considered dirty or clean fuel such as whether nuclear power should be included as a baseload energy provider or scrapped because of concerns around the severity and length of time of waste, and where and how our energy is sourced and provided for. There are ongoing conversations at many levels about how advisable it is to rely on energy coming from sources that have questionable motives towards the USA generally. That would pose the stick. The carrot would be the boost to the economy of transitioning not just our own economy to make all of the changes necessary, but to be at the forefront of the industry and leading the world’s production of such goods and services, as well as claiming the power of integrity when negotiating with other nations that are more hesitant about transitioning to renewables themselves when the USA hasn’t committed to such action itself.
Again, Economists have a straightforward answer; putting a price on carbon. But this does not really mesh well with the goals of either legislators in congress, or activists such as FFF or the Sunrise Movement. What, then, would it take to get both legislators and activists on board? I would argue that more involvement in the process on both ends would foster change. Perhaps we can take an incremental approach when needed, and a punctuated equilibrium approach for significant change when possible. Whether it takes the form of a price on carbon or piece meal regulations, some action is necessary to limit damages from the climate crisis that are already being felt.
This becomes even more apparent when broadening our view to other countries around the world. As heat waves, droughts, flooding, sea level rise and more continue to become common place, things like action to aid migrants and infrastructure repair will be increasingly needed. There is no way that the USA can simply wall up its borders and expect to ride out the coming changes. And I would argue that such an approach would not live up to our legacy as a country. Now is the time for bold action, by both government and the private sector, and now is the era that future generations will judge us by. We can make change, whether we are a legislator or grassroots activists, not simply by calling for it, but by advocating relentlessly for it through whatever means are available for us to do so. To do otherwise would be tantamount to surrender, and that is not a reality I would wish for anyone, whether they hold US citizenship or otherwise.
VII: References
Amy Lerman. 2019. Good Enough for Government Work: The Public Reputation Crisis in American (and What we can do to Fix it). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
James Curry and Frances Lee. 2020. The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Martin Lodge, Edward C. Page, and Steven J. Balla. 2015. The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Public Policy and Administration. Commentaries on:
• James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why. By Bill Gormley.
•E.E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People. By Donald Studler.
• John Kingdon. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. By Scott Greer.
• Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics. By Peter John.
• Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action. By David Lowery.
Harrison, Katheryn. “The Comparative Politics of Carbon Taxation.” The Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 2010.6.507-529, https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.093008.131545
viewed on 10/23/2021