IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v10y2022i1p275-289.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Carbon Pricing in the US: Examining State-Level Policy Support and Federal Resistance

Author

Listed:
  • Easwaran Narassimhan

    (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA / The Fletcher School, Tufts University, USA)

  • Stefan Koester

    (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, USA)

  • Kelly Sims Gallagher

    (The Fletcher School, Tufts University, USA)

Abstract

Carbon pricing is a key policy instrument used to steer markets towards the adoption of low-carbon technologies. In the last two decades, several carbon pricing policies have been implemented or debated at the state and federal levels in the US. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the California cap-and-trade policy are the two regional policies operational today. While there is no federal policy operational today, several carbon pricing proposals have been introduced in Congress in the last decade. Using the literature on interest group politics and policy entrepreneurship, this article examines the carbon pricing policies at the subnational and federal levels in the US. First, the article explores the evolution of two main regional carbon pricing policies, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and California cap-and-trade, to identify how interest groups and policy entrepreneurs shaped the design and implementation of the respective policies. Second, the article details the federal carbon pricing policy proposals and bills discussed in the last decade. Third, it examines the factors that limit the prospects of realizing an ambitious federal carbon price for pursuing deep decarbonization of the US economy. The article finds that federal carbon pricing in the US suffers from the lack of any natural and/or consistent constituency to support it through policy development, legislation, and implementation. While interest group politics have been mitigated by good policy entrepreneurship at the subnational level, the lack of policy entrepreneurship and the changing positions of competing interest groups have kept a federal carbon pricing policy from becoming a reality.

Suggested Citation

  • Easwaran Narassimhan & Stefan Koester & Kelly Sims Gallagher, 2022. "Carbon Pricing in the US: Examining State-Level Policy Support and Federal Resistance," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(1), pages 275-289.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v10:y:2022:i:1:p:275-289
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v10i1.4857
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4857
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/pag.v10i1.4857?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Torbjørg Jevnaker & Jørgen Wettestad, 2017. "Ratcheting Up Carbon Trade: The Politics of Reforming EU Emissions Trading," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 17(2), pages 105-124, May.
    2. Geoffroy Dolphin & Michael G Pollitt & David M Newbery, 2020. "The political economy of carbon pricing: a panel analysis," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 472-500.
    3. Yves Steinebach & Xavier Fernández-i-Marín & Christian Aschenbrenner, 2021. "Who puts a price on carbon, why and how? A global empirical analysis of carbon pricing policies," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 277-289, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lars H. Gulbrandsen & Jørgen Wettestad, 2022. "Carbon Pricing Under Pressure: Withering Markets?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(1), pages 230-234.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Easwaran Narassimhan & Stefan Koester & Kelly Sims Gallagher, 2022. "Carbon Pricing in the US: Examining State-Level Policy Support and Federal Resistance," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(1), pages 275-289.
    2. Sebastian Levi & Christian Flachsland & Michael Jakob, 2020. "Political Economy Determinants of Carbon Pricing," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(2), pages 128-156, May.
    3. Dominique Desbois, 2020. "Economics of Agricultural Carbon Sequestration in Soils," Agricultural Research & Technology: Open Access Journal, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 24(3), pages 127-128, June.
    4. De Groote, Olivier & Gautier, Axel & Verboven, Frank, 2024. "The political economy of financing climate policy — Evidence from the solar PV subsidy programs," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    5. Giorgos Galanis & Giorgio Ricchiuti & Ben Tippet, 2022. "The Global Political Economy of a Green Transition," Working Papers - Economics wp2022_22.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    6. Gilbert E. Metcalf & James H. Stock, 2023. "The Macroeconomic Impact of Europe's Carbon Taxes," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 265-286, July.
    7. David Newbery, 2017. "The economics of air pollution from fossil fuels," Working Papers EPRG 1708, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    8. Arjan Trinks & Erik Hille, 2023. "Carbon costs and industrial firm performance: Evidence from international microdata," CPB Discussion Paper 445, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    9. Yunting Feng & Yong Geng & Ge Zhao & Mengya Li, 2022. "Carbon Emission Constraint Policy in an OEM and Outsourcing Remanufacturer Supply Chain with Consumer Preferences," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-16, April.
    10. Newbery, David, 2018. "Evaluating the case for supporting renewable electricity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 684-696.
    11. Rafaty, R. & Dolphin, G. & Pretis, F., 2020. "Carbon pricing and the elasticity of CO2 emissions," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 20116, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    12. Sato, Misato & Rafaty, Ryan & Calel, Raphael & Grubb, Michael, 2022. "Allocation, allocation, allocation! The political economy of the development of the European Union Emissions Trading System," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115431, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Claire Dupont & Brendan Moore, 2019. "Brexit and the EU in Global Climate Governance," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 51-61.
    14. Brendan Moore & Andrew Jordan, 2020. "Disaggregating the dependent variable in policy feedback research: an analysis of the EU Emissions Trading System," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 53(2), pages 291-307, June.
    15. Jochen Markard & Daniel Rosenbloom, 2020. "Politics of low-carbon transitions: The European Emissions Trading System as a Trojan Horse for climate policy?," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20200116, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    16. Alexander Krenek & Mark Sommer & Margit Schratzenstaller-Altzinger, 2019. "Sustainability-oriented Future EU Funding. A European Border Carbon Adjustment," WIFO Working Papers 587, WIFO.
    17. Dolphin, Geoffroy, 2022. "Evaluating National and Subnational Carbon Prices: A Harmonized Approach," RFF Working Paper Series 22-04, Resources for the Future.
    18. Michael A Mehling & Geoffroy Dolphin & Robert A Ritz, 2024. "The European Union's CBAM: averting emissions leakage or promoting the diffusion of carbon pricing?," Working Papers EPRG2416, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    19. Heather W. Cann, 2021. "Policy or scientific messaging? Strategic framing in a case of subnational climate change conflict," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 38(5), pages 570-595, September.
    20. Turner, Karen & Alabi, Oluwafisayo & Katris, Antonios & Swales, Kim, 2022. "The importance of labour market responses, competitiveness impacts, and revenue recycling in determining the political economy costs of broad carbon taxation in the UK," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v10:y:2022:i:1:p:275-289. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.