Short Circuiting Policy.

• Author: Giberson, Michael

Short Circuiting Policy, by Leah Cardamore Stokes (Oxford University Press, 2020). 336 pages, ISBN: 9780190074258 hardback, 9780190074265 paperback.

Federal tax credit policies have provided a substantial economic boost to renewable power and the US Department of Energy with its national labs has provided critical research and analysis. However, for the last two decades, development of renewable power policy in the United States has, with a few exceptions, occurred mostly at the state level. States have provided valuable spaces for policy exploration and implementation.

The first two chapters explain the interest group-driven theory of policy change and the related conceptions of policy feedback, lock-in, retrenchment, and policy uncertainty that are central to her account. Her method is to apply the theories and concepts in an interpretive account of state policy development and evolution, focusing on cases in which policies were established and could have become locked in but rather were repealed or cut back.

Chapter 3 recounts the intertwined histories of economic regulation and the electric power industry over the course of the twentieth century. The development of renewable energy policies, which took off in the 1990s, came at a time when the electric power regulation itself was being restructured. Restructuring, intended to inject efficiency-enhancing market forces into the electric industry, may seem at odds with policies intended to promote specific technologies independently of cost. However, renewable standards have proven to be relatively congruent with competitive wholesale power markets, at least in comparison to other state subsidy policies. (1)

The discussion may be good enough for purposes of setting the background for the five substantive chapters that follow. However, more care in the explanation of federal and state roles in implementing the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act of 1978 (PURPA) would have been useful given the significance of that policy both for renewable energy development and for electric industry restructuring more generally. A clearer focus on the federal-state jurisdictional split may have also helped readers understand the way in which state renewable energy policies interact with federal transmission policies.

Chapters 4 and 5 address renewable power policies in Texas, exploring first the success in establishing an RPS and second the failure of efforts to create a solar power carveout. Initial efforts to promote an RPS foundered against the opposition of established electric utilities. An effort to establish competitive retail electric power markets in Texas, supported by the state's governor and key legislators, provided the right opportunity for action. Pro-market conservatives were willing to accept a modest RPS along with consumer protections sought by progressive state legislators, and the coalition was sufficient to overcome utility opposition to the changes. Success of the RPS and subsequent dramatic growth of...