Abstract
An initial period known as America’s ‘environmental decade’, spanning the 1960s and 1970s, saw the enactment of far-reaching environmental initiatives by Presidents from both Parties, supported by large bipartisan majorities in Congress. These initiatives operated under a framework of ‘cooperative federalism’, whereby certain minimum environmental standards were established at the federal level, with states enjoying broad autonomy in the implementation process. The rise of neoliberalism as a dominant ideology within the Republican Party has led to gridlock on environmental issues since the 1980s, providing an opportunity for lobbying groups to increase their influence over the US political system. President Obama’s election in 2008 led to hopes of a potential change in paradigm. While Obama succeeded in enacting a number of notable climate initiatives during his first and especially his second term mostly via executive action, Republicans were able to thwart several of his more far-reaching proposals. As a point of contrast, Trump’s Presidency led to drastic climate policy rollbacks involving unfettered fossil fuel development, failed attempts to launch a ‘coal renaissance’, the suppression of climate science and the undermining of clean energy development. Likewise, Trump’s actions ushered in an extreme version of ‘cooperative federalism’, leaving states to do mostly as they pleased.
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Notes
- 1.
On the legal mechanisms of the US federal system, see Fisher and Harriger (2019).
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
On climate initiatives enacted under Obama, see Bailey (2019).
- 6.
Regarding polarization on climate issues under Obama, see Brewer (2012).
- 7.
Most interviewees have asked to remain anonymous for the purposes of this publication (see Chapter 1).
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
- 12.
Brinkley (2022).
- 13.
Coodley and Sarasohn (2021).
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
NEPA also established procedural requirements whereby all federal agencies must prepare ‘environmental assessments’, along with ‘environmental impact assessments’, in order to determine the effects of federal regulations on the environment.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26.
Attempts by activists to infer a constitutional right to a clean environment from various unrelated provisions have generally been dismissed by the federal court system.
- 27.
- 28.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3.
- 29.
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2.
- 30.
Article I, Section 8.
- 31.
Article III.
- 32.
Article I, Section 10, Clause 3.
- 33.
Article II, Section 2.
- 34.
Constitution of the United States of America (1791). Tenth Amendment.
- 35.
Article I, Sections 9 and 10.
- 36.
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
The American federal system has undergone many transformations over the course of US history. Thus, a number of different appellations, such as ‘dual federalism’ or ‘new federalism’ more recently, have been relied on to describe different historical periods. In the environmental field, the notion of ‘cooperative federalism’ is generally considered to be the most appropriate denomination.
- 39.
- 40.
Article VI Clause 2, which asserts that the Constitution and federal laws deriving from it, represent the “Supreme Law of the Land”.
- 41.
- 42.
- 43.
The exact interplay can be more subtle, as in some cases federal laws may appear to provide states with flexibility, while the EPA’s implementing regulations might subsequently attempt to constrain it, or vice versa.
- 44.
Woods (2006).
- 45.
- 46.
A notable example was the state of California, which failed to meet new national requirements after the 1970 CAA amendment. This led the EPA to launch a lawsuit against the state, which was followed by a federally enforced implementation plan.
- 47.
For many air pollutants, the latest SIPs in the states of Massachusetts and New York were upgraded in 2018 and 2019, with an interruption since then due to the COVID-19 crisis, before slow resumption since 2021.
- 48.
Bass et al. (1996).
- 49.
Ibid.
- 50.
Ibid.
- 51.
See Fisher and Harriger (2019).
- 52.
Hague and Harrop (2007, p. 243).
- 53.
This system was established by the ‘Drinking Water State Revolving Fund’ (DWSRF), passed under the 1996 Congressional amendment to the Safe Drinking Water Act, with ‘capitalization grants’ funding provided to states.
- 54.
- 55.
- 56.
See Perlstein (2021).
- 57.
- 58.
This formed part of a broader international movement within the Western world at the time, as it coincided with the electoral victories of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Helmut Kohl in West Germany. Both leaders embraced similar neoliberal agendas, which contributed to changing the structure of the global economy and led to the rise of the so-called ‘Washington Consensus’. See Robison (2006).
- 59.
- 60.
Keynesianism was born out of the failure of the free market economy, which had led to the Wall Street Crash in 1929, the most severe economic depression in history. The latter had highlighted the need for more governmental regulation over financial markets and the economy. Yet, by the 1970s, the post-war economic boom had come to an end with two petrol shocks in 1973 and 1979, which triggered a ‘stagflation crisis’ (inflation and stagnating growth). With memories of the Great Depression fading away, this led neoliberal economists such as Friedman to challenge the Keynesian consensus by arguing that governmental regulation was, at least in part, responsible for the stagflation crisis of the 1970s. See Friedman (1993) and Friedman et al. (2017).
- 61.
- 62.
- 63.
See Klyza and Sousa (2013).
- 64.
Clinton’s proposed Climate Change Action Plan was announced in October 1993 and aimed to reduce US GHG emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000 through 44 different policy initiatives. For instance, the proposal of a British Thermal Tax sought to introduce a levy on producers of oil, gasoline and other fossil fuels based on their fuel content, in accordance with the British Thermal Unit (BTU).
- 65.
See Maney (2016).
- 66.
This led Bill Clinton to famously declare during his 1996 State of the Union address that “the era of big government is over”.
- 67.
The Clean Air Partnership Fund aimed to support state, local and private efforts to reduce both GHG emissions and ground-level air pollutants through grants to state governments. Likewise, the Climate Change Technology Initiative involved a package of tax incentives and investments in research and development to spur increased energy efficiency and broader use of renewable energy sources. See President Clinton’s Climate Change Initiatives, White House Archives: https://clintonwhitehouse2.archives.gov/WH/SOTU99/climate.html.
- 68.
Shafie (2020).
- 69.
See Klyza and Sousa (2013).
- 70.
See Lisowski (2002).
- 71.
- 72.
This included attempts to convince the public that the science of climate change is not proven and that there is no consensus, that it is the result of natural cycles, or that ‘technological breakthroughs’ such as hydrogen cars would eventually resolve the problem. Attempts were made to pressure scientists to eliminate the words ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’ from official documents, and major reports such as the ‘National Assessment on the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change’, were buried by the White House.
- 73.
- 74.
- 75.
See McFarland (1987) for a detailed analysis of different interest groups and theories of power in US politics.
- 76.
Brown (2016).
- 77.
Charnock (2020).
- 78.
- 79.
Examples of the most prominent CTTs include the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center, among others.
- 80.
- 81.
79th US Congress (1945–1947), Administrative Procedure Act, Public Law 79–404.
- 82.
For example, the APA requires federal agencies to consult and obtain public input in the process of developing regulations, which allows a certain level of oversight from civil society. Overall, the APA has established the main procedural framework under which federal agencies put regulations in place.
- 83.
- 84.
A prominent example, which will be examined in more detail below, is the Supreme Court’s staying of Obama’s Clean Power Plan in 2016, following a lawsuit launched by 24 Republican states, under pressure from industrial and corporate lobbying groups (which also filed separate lawsuits against the EPA).
- 85.
See Obama and Biden (2008).
- 86.
Hale (2018).
- 87.
- 88.
See Bailey (2019).
- 89.
- 90.
- 91.
Regarding the degree of polarization on climate issues within US public opinion and the resulting party politics during Obama’s first term, see Brewer (2012).
- 92.
As will be examined in more detail in Chapter 3, this refers to a situation when a Party holds the sixty votes in the Senate required to circumvent a ‘filibuster’ from the opposition; the ‘filibuster’ is an obstruction technique relying on a Senator’s right to speak and hold the floor potentially indefinitely, thus blocking the adoption of legislation.
- 93.
See Shafie (2020).
- 94.
- 95.
In spite of this, the WCI continues to operate on a smaller scale and has yielded positive results for the remaining participants (California, the state of Washington, Nova Scotia and Quebec) in terms of reducing GHG emissions. See Western Climate Initiative, https://wci-inc.org.
- 96.
This includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia. See Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, https://www.rggi.org.
- 97.
Ibid. The first period covered 2009–2011, the second period was from 2012–2014, the third one from 2015–17, the fourth period from 2018–20 and the fifth one spans 2021–2023.
- 98.
Ibid.
- 99.
Ibid.
- 100.
As will be examined in more detail in subsequent chapters, this corroborates the idea that initiatives at the sub-state level have become essential in terms of closing the global emissions gap, due to the inadequacy of national climate policies.
- 101.
Hale (2018).
- 102.
See Bailey (2019).
- 103.
- 104.
US Department of Energy—Office Electricity, 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: https://www.energy.gov/oe/information-center/recovery-act.
- 105.
- 106.
As explained above, Democrats chose to prioritize pushing through legislation on other polarizing issues such as health care during Obama’s first term, instead of focusing on climate change.
- 107.
Shafie (2020).
- 108.
Executive orders also raise issues in terms of democratic accountability, since they essentially aim to circumvent both Houses of Congress.
- 109.
- 110.
US Supreme Court. Massachusetts v. EPA. No. 05-1120, 2nd of April 2007.
- 111.
See Lazarus (2020).
- 112.
US EPA (2009, December).
- 113.
While multiple legal challenges were subsequently launched to contest the ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court and other federal courts have consistently upheld the central clauses of the initial ruling back in 2007.
- 114.
See US EPA, Clean Air Act Text—What Is the Clean Air Act? https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/clean-air-act-text.
- 115.
More specifically, the rules aimed to reduce US methane emissions by 40–45% over 2012 levels up to 2025.
- 116.
The Climate Action Plan also outlined provisions to ‘lead international efforts to address global climate change’, as well as ‘prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change’ (adaptation falls outside the ambit of this book).
- 117.
Quotation from Dr. David Victor (University of California San Diego). See Lavelle (2016).
- 118.
Bailey (2019).
- 119.
- 120.
A rigid, top-down approach to climate policy would have been problematic to enact anyway under the US federal system.
- 121.
Executive Office of the President (2013, June). The President’s Climate Action Plan. The White House.
- 122.
- 123.
The short- and medium-term targets set out by the CPP for 2025 and 2030 also aimed to establish a pathway for the US to achieve a longer-term commitment of reducing GHG emissions 80% by 2050 (again from 2005 levels). This built upon a previous pledge made by the Obama administration in preparation for the 2009 Copenhagen conference of reducing US GHG emissions 17% by 2020 (relying on a 2005 baseline once more).
- 124.
US EPA (2015, October 23). Clean Power Plan Final Rule, Federal Register Vol. 80 No. 205.
- 125.
The power sector has since then been surpassed by the transportation sector, which today represents the largest source of American GHG emissions, with an upward trajectory (27% for transportation and 25% for the power sector in 2020). See US EPA, Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions.
- 126.
Speech by President Obama unveiling the CPP on August 3, 2015.
- 127.
See US EPA (2015). Fact Sheet: Overview of the Clean Power Plan, Cutting Carbon Pollution from Power Plants.
- 128.
Ibid.
- 129.
In fact, the EPA provided extensive guidelines to assist states in developing approvable plans under the CPP, including ‘model rule’ provisions that states could simply copy and paste into their own plans.
- 130.
Bianco and Carbonell (2015).
- 131.
Ibid.
- 132.
Ibid. This involved a ‘glide path’ model, whereby emission reductions were to gradually increase and become more ambitious over time, starting off at a lower level to end on a higher rate.
- 133.
The Clean Energy Incentive Program specifically prioritized low-income communities for early clean energy investments. See The White House (2015, August 3). Fact Sheet: President Obama to Announce Historic Carbon Pollution Standards for Power Plants.
- 134.
Ibid. See also US EPA (2015). Fact Sheet: Overview of the Clean Power Plan, Cutting Carbon Pollution from Power Plants.
- 135.
See US EPA, Overview of the Clean Air Act and Air Pollution, https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview.
- 136.
Lazarus (2020).
- 137.
This substantiates the notion that the different levels of governance are interdependent and may be mutually reinforcing.
- 138.
- 139.
New York Metropolitan Transportation Council: https://www.nymtc.org.
- 140.
Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization: https://www.ctps.org.
- 141.
As previously examined, the United States possesses a so-called ‘dual system’ of local government, “which maintains a formal separation of central and local government. Although the center is sovereign, local authorities are not seen as part of a single State structure” (Hague and Harrop 2007).
- 142.
- 143.
US Supreme Court. Order in Pending Case: West Virginia et al. v. EPA et al. Order 577 U.S., 9 February 2016. See also Hurley and Volcovici (2016).
- 144.
This provides an interesting example of how ‘conflictual federalism’ has now become the norm, due to the level of polarization that climate change has acquired in American politics. Regardless of which Party is in office, the other one systematically launches lawsuits to oppose either the enactment or the dismantlement of federal climate policies and initiatives.
- 145.
This included up to four million comments submitted to the EPA during the ‘public comment period’.
- 146.
- 147.
Zelizer (2022).
- 148.
- 149.
- 150.
- 151.
For instance, the Trump administration edited a major report by the Defense Department to water down its conclusions on climate change, and ordered the EPA to suppress the scientific evidence it relies on to develop regulations.
- 152.
Partly due to pressure from special interest groups and the prioritizing of other issues like health care. See Shafie (2020).
- 153.
Obama’s strategy of a ‘thousand small hammers’ was at least partly successful, since the multiplication of so many different initiatives meant that Trump was unable to completely roll all of them back.
- 154.
- 155.
Trump also ordered the EPA to stop gathering gas and oil company data, which is relied upon to contain methane leaks from infrastructure.
- 156.
The ‘social cost of carbon’ had been established under Obama as a regulatory tool, putting a price on the future damage which society will have to pay for every ton of CO2 that is generated.
- 157.
See Thompson et al. (2020).
- 158.
- 159.
See Lazarus (2020).
- 160.
US EPA (2019, July 8). Affordable Clean Energy Rule—Final Version, US Federal Vol. 84 No. 130.
- 161.
US EPA (2019). Fact Sheet—The Affordable Clean Energy Rule (ACE).
- 162.
The EPA noted that US GHG emissions were still likely to fall by 35% up to 2030, but this would not be the result of the ACE rule and would rather be linked to the accelerating deployment of renewable energies due to the fall in costs for such technologies, along with the continuation of the ‘shale gas’ revolution begun under Obama. See US EPA (2018).
- 163.
US EPA (2019). Affordable Clean Energy Rule.
- 164.
- 165.
United States Climate Alliance, http://www.usclimatealliance.org.
- 166.
We Are Still In: https://www.wearestillin.com. America’s Pledge: https://www.americaspledgeonclimate.com.
- 167.
US Climate Mayors: https://climatemayors.org.
- 168.
In that sense, the US cities and states in our sample anticipated some of the renewed climate pledges that would be made at the national level by the Biden administration a few years later (see Chapter 3).
- 169.
Office of Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu (2020), Planning for a Boston Green New Deal & Just Recovery.
- 170.
Hale (2018).
- 171.
This was already true during the Obama era. See Brewer (2012).
- 172.
See US Climate Alliance, http://www.usclimatealliance.org.
- 173.
Ibid.
- 174.
- 175.
As previously explained, while all states had to meet federal minimum standards under the CPP, they were still given the option of adopting their own more ambitious sub-national plans that surpassed the national floor during the implementation phase, as exemplified by New York and Massachusetts in our sample (see Chapters 6 and 7). See also US EPA (2015).
- 176.
As examined in this chapter, although President Bill Clinton had lofty climate ambitions, he lost both Houses of Congress in the 1994 mid-term elections, which constrained him for the rest of his Presidency. Likewise, while it is true that Obama did enact a number of different climate policies through executive action during his second term, none had the ambit of the CPP in terms of supporting sub-national actors.
- 177.
- 178.
See US EPA & Department of Transportation (2019, September). Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Rule Part One: One National Program Rule (SAFE-1), Federal Register Vol. 84 No. 188.
- 179.
This was partly due to the dangerous levels of toxic smog in the city of Los Angeles at the time, even though California would still have to justify its waiver, which had to be approved by the EPA with each new set of rules.
- 180.
As a result, certain emission control techniques which started out in California, such as catalytic converters and oxide nitrogen regulations, have since become widespread across the US.
- 181.
On Republican discourse about states’ rights in relation to environmental matters, see Turner and Isenberg (2018).
- 182.
US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, American Lung Association v. EPA, No. 19–1140, 19 January 2021.
- 183.
See Morehouse (2021).
- 184.
See Larsen et al. (2020).
- 185.
See Lavelle (2016).
- 186.
Barichella (2021).
- 187.
Hence, due to market-based forces, even conservative states like Texas have been undergoing a partial green transition over the last few years in terms of the development of renewable energy sources, despite political opposition from the Republican Governor Greg Abbott.
- 188.
Barichella (2019).
- 189.
On the legal mechanisms of the US federal system, see Fisher and Harriger (2019).
- 190.
- 191.
- 192.
On climate initiatives enacted under Obama, see Bailey (2019).
- 193.
Regarding polarization on climate issues under Obama, see Brewer (2012).
- 194.
Concerning the broad powers and autonomy enjoyed by federal states under US constitutional law, see Fisher and Harriger (2019).
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Barichella, A. (2023). Historical Context of American Cooperative Federalism on Environmental Issues, with Contrasting Perspectives Between Obama and Trump. In: Can Cities, States and Regions Save Our Planet?. Energy, Climate and the Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33936-3_2
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