Search

Drawing on ideas about how narratives focus attention, this paper develops a "narrative policy image" using the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and Narrative Policy Framework explanations of the policy process. The concept of a narrative policy image is applied to test partisan expectations about presidential environmental policy stories in State of the Union Addresses over 73 years. This research finds that Democratic stories focus on problems like climate change and victims and Republican stories emphasize solutions like new programs and upholding the status quo. These trends point to potential story types and suggest a narrative policy image, including both narrative components and valence, may be a useful concept for understanding narrative attention in macropolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas but it has received strikingly less social science attention than carbon dioxide in examining climate policy options. This article explores American state policy toward methane that is not captured and instead released into the atmosphere during oil and gas production. It examines whether states have adopted market‐based approaches to price methane flaring and venting through long‐standing severance taxes on natural gas extraction. Such taxes exist in all but one production state, routinely materializing after prolonged adoption battles. Most states have maintained methane release exemptions from these taxes through either statute or administrative discretion between 1960 and 2000, although a few have allowed some form of pricing. Two state legislatures have explored applying these taxes to methane releases on multiple occasions since 2000, amid expanded shale era output and growing public concern about climate and air quality impacts. Steadfast production industry opposition, rather than technical feasibility, emerges as the primary factor leading to rejection in these cases. Even when framing releases as a conventional air contaminant or as permanent loss of a nonrenewable natural resource, states largely continue to exempt flared or vented methane from severance taxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across many social–ecological systems, policy makers and scholars increasingly call for science to inform policy. The science–policy interface becomes especially complex as collaborative approaches include multiple stakeholders working together across jurisdictions. Unfortunately little is known about how much and how science is used in collaborative governance for social–ecological systems. This exploratory study examines instrumental, conceptual, and symbolic use of science in a science‐rich collaborative planning case in the Puget Sound, USA. It also examines the influence of science, relative to other factors, in collaborative planning, and what factors affect it. Results from a survey and document analysis indicate the prevalence of conceptual use of science, with relatively little symbolic use. Some factors promoting conceptual and instrumental use discourage symbolic use. Overall, while science is seen as influential in this science‐rich context, its influence is balanced by local stakeholder preferences and contextual information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to calls from previous scholarship for further bottom‐up examination of local government roles in environmental policy, the authors revisit local air agencies to examine two separate phenomena occurring in environmental federalism: one from the top down (second‐order devolution) and one from the bottom up (local activism). Using survey data from local air agencies on devolved authorities to set air quality standards and to enforce federal and/or state standards, the authors identify three different types of local agencies: state administrative subunits (only enforcement authority), fully devolved agencies (authority to both set and enforce standards), and activist agencies (neither authority). Further findings indicate that state administrative subunits and fully devolved agencies are likely functions of second‐order devolution, while activist agencies are likely functions of local activism. Conclusions suggest that both top‐down and bottom‐up approaches to environmental federalism are shaping local government roles in environmental management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst congressional gridlock, administrative rulemaking is the main pathway for environmental policy making. Scholars have assessed the role of the institutions of government (the president, Congress, and the courts) and key interest groups (i.e., business and environmental interests) in shaping rulemaking outcomes. What is missing from this literature is an assessment of the role of key implementers, state environmental agencies. This research fills this gap by assessing the role and impact of state government agencies in three case studies of rulemaking at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Based on original interviews and a public comment analysis, this research suggests that state agencies play an active and influential role in EPA rulemaking. And, in some cases, state agencies wield more influence than other interest groups. Interviewees argued that this influence stems from these agencies' unique voice as an implementation collaborator. As a result, researchers should incorporate an assessment of the role of these interests to more effectively explain regulatory outcomes at the EPA and potentially across the bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]