Browsing by Author "Davis, Charles E., advisor"

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Open Access
Fracking and Goldilocks Federalism: the too loud, too quiet and just right politics of states and cities
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Fisk, Jonathan M., author; Davis, Charles E., advisor; Opp, Susan M., committee member; Straayer, John A., committee member; O'Connor Shelley, Tara, committee member
Wicked environmental and energy challenges often originate where energy, the environment and economics intersect (Rittel and Webber 1973). Fracking is one such example. As a practice, it has prompted a certain amount of political debate at both the state and municipal levels. Proponents argue that natural gas extraction creates well-paying jobs, helps grow and revive stagnant economies and that it provides a 'cleaner' burning energy source. Its opponents counter that the technique produces a number of environmental harms such as air pollution, surface and groundwater contamination, places new demands on infrastructure and causes geological instability (Davis 2012). Ranging from intergovernmental battles to cooperative relationships, the politics of fracking are reshaping the relations between neighborhoods, city hall and the statehouse. To explore the 'second order' dynamics of fracking, this dissertation asks several interrelated questions. What are the state and local institutions, rules and informal norms governing state-municipal relationships when it comes to hydraulic fracturing? To what extent do municipalities regulate fracking and what are the types of city-level regulation? Finally, why are some cities willing to pass land use policies that challenge their state's natural gas extraction goals and preemptive authority and others are not? To answer the questions above, I consider the second order dynamics in the context of Colorado, Texas and Ohio and a sample of cities in each state. Each state has a high number of citizens living near gas wells, but offers cities and towns varying degrees of land use authority. To elucidate their second-order relationships and dynamics, each chapter tests potential explanatory variables originating from studies of environmental policy, democratic theory and urban governance. Results suggest that both macro level (environmentalism and mobilization) and micro level concerns (percentage of owner occupied homes and median home values) can affect second order relations and the willingness of local communities to exert more municipal autonomy and challenge their state. My findings offer a more complete picture of second order federalism and strengthen the scholarly and applied understanding of two key American political institutions.
Open Access
Policy innovation and change: the diffusion and modification of the renewable portfolio standard, 1994 – 2014
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Hoffer, Katherine Anne Heriot, author; Davis, Charles E., advisor; Cheng, Antony, committee member; Moore, Scott T., committee member; Saunders, Kyle L., committee member
To date, the U.S. federal government has not enacted a national renewable energy policy. Inertia at this level of government creates a policy space that allows American states to take the lead. State policy drives clean energy development. By the fall of 2014, every state in the nation had adopted at least one policy supportive of increased market penetration of renewable energy, and 38 states had adopted either a mandatory renewable portfolio standard (RPS) or a voluntary renewable energy goal. Between January 1, 1995 and the end of 2014, over 207 legislative changes amended existing RPSs and voluntary goals. Of these, most made small modifications or increased renewable energy requirements. Far fewer made significant changes to weaken state policy. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of energy policy innovation and change, where the adoption of an innovation is defined as a policy that is new to the state adopting it. It does so using a mixed methods approach that answers two major research questions: Why do states adopt different types of renewable portfolio standards (RPSs), while others fail to adopt any type of RPS? And, after states adopt an RPS, why do they amend the policy in the manner that they do over time? Using case studies and event history analysis based on a unified model of policy innovation suggested by existing literature, this study finds that both the size and direction of the effects of explanatory variables as well as the individual variables themselves vary across decision types, time, and space. More specifically, while the results confirm that household incomes, citizen and government ideology, and educational attainment are important internal state characteristics for explaining decisions to adopt and amend RPSs, the effect of these variables varies across different types of decisions. In addition, renewable energy interests and resources, fossil fuel resources and related interest groups, policy entrepreneurs, collaboration, and coalition building are important for explaining policy adoption and change. While this study found little to suggest that renewable energy potential is an important predictor of the decision to adopt an RPS, it did find that other state and federal policies are significant factors influencing the decision to adopt a certain type of RPS or amend an RPS in a certain manner. While the results of the case studies suggest that policy diffusion also plays an important role in explaining policy innovation and change, the results of the quantitative models must be interpreted with some caution.
Open Access
River restoration and dam removal in the American West: an examination of policy change across political jurisdictions
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007) Clark, Bradley T., author; Davis, Charles E., advisor
The engineering of water resources has largely defined the advance of civilization in North America. For various purposes, this development has continually expanded, with emphasis on societal benefits often at the expense of ecological considerations. The heyday of dam building ended by the mid-1960s, with the largest structures being completed. Since then, environmental and social impacts have mounted in severity and scope. For decades, research from the natural sciences has documented many negative ecological impacts from the damming of rivers. More recently, a political movement to restore rivers and natural resources has grown and prompted numerous changes to traditional polices of river development. This dissertation's focus is dam removal, an example of such policy change, and means to restore rivers in the western US. The theoretical perspective offered by Lowry (2003) is utilized to examine policy change and explore the political dimensions of dam removal. Key variables include the degrees of political receptivity and physical complexity of proposed dam removals. Specific attention is on the three federal jurisdictional contexts in which the political debates unfold; these include dams under the direction of the US Army Corps of Engineers; the US Bureau of Reclamation; and nonfederal hydropower dams regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A detailed case from each context examines the political dynamics and address the question of why dams in some contexts have been removed or are slated for removal, while others have not. A fourth, intergovernmental context is also considered for dams under the primary jurisdiction of a state or local administrative agency, albeit with notable federal influence and/or involvement. Broad research questions include: How do the politics of dam removal play out in different political jurisdictions? Are dramatic versus less dramatic types of policy change more or less likely in various contexts? This research finds that major policy change can occur, not only within federal administrative contexts in the West, but for cases when political receptivity is low and physical complexity is high.