Proposal for final report

Civil Society in an Age of Environmental Accountability: How

Local Environmental Nongovernmental Organizations Reduce

U.S. Power Plants’ Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Don Grant 1 and Ion Bogdan Vasi

2

Institutional scholars have argued that in the absence of legislation on the issue of climate change, non-

governmental organizations (NGOs) can help reduce the amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gases being

emitted to the environment by disseminating environmental norms. Consistent with this reasoning, they

have shown that from the middle of the last century up through the mid-1990s, nations with more member-

ships in NGOs have tended to have lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the aggregate. Doubts

remain, however, about whether NGOs have reduced emissions in the time since and at the level of individ-

ual power plants where the lion’s share of carbon pollution is emitted. Using plant-specific information on

CO2 emissions recently collected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under its Greenhouse

Gas Reporting Program, we investigate the effects of local environmental NGOs (ENGOs) on plants’

environmental performance. Consistent with our expectations, we find that local ENGOs not only directly

reduce plants’ emissions but indirectly do so by enhancing the effectiveness of subnational climate policies

that encourage energy efficiency. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on the decou-

pling of normative systems, social movements, environmental sociology, and the EPA’s proposed Clean

Power Plan.

KEY WORDS: civil society; Clean Power Plan; energy; environment; pollution; social movements.

INTRODUCTION

At least since Weber, sociologists have stressed how civil society can solve problems that the market and state either create or ignore. While acknowledging that the policies promoted by civil society might be adopted but never fully imple- mented, they suggest that citizen groups can nonetheless be influential within decou- pled systems by diffusing cultural models that legitimate social movements, spur corporate action, change government priorities, and reshape people’s attitudes (Meyer, Ramirez, and Soysal 1992; Ramirez, Soysal, and Shanahan 1997; see also Hutter and O’Mahoney 2004). Extending this argument, institutional scholars have argued that in the absence of international legislation on the issue of climate change, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can still help reduce the amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) being emitted to the environment by disseminating global, environmental norms to lower levels of society (Frank, Hiron- aka, and Schofer 2000). Consistent with this reasoning, they have shown that from the middle of the last century up through the mid-1990s, nations with more

1 Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder, 327 Ketchum 219, Boulder, Colorado 80309; e-mail: [email protected].

2 Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, 140 Seashore Hall West, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1401.

Sociological Forum, Vol. 32, No. 1, March 2017

DOI: 10.1111/socf.12318

© 2016 Eastern Sociological Society

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memberships in NGOs have tended to have lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the aggregate (Schofer and Hironaka 2005).

Doubts remain, however, about whether NGOs have reduced CO2 emissions in the time since and at their primary sources. Many observe that NGOs have adopted a more professional orientation over time that downplays citizen participation and dis- ruptive politics (Choudry and Kapoor 2013). Since the mid-1990s, policymakers have also concluded that economy-wide approaches to lowering CO2 emissions are too unwieldy and imprecise, whereas those that seek to change the consumption habits of individuals are limited to the lowest hanging fruit. They argue that a new approach to a low carbon future is urgently needed that targets the energy sector, the world’s lar- gest and fastest-growing source of emissions (International Energy Agency 2009).

Also, contrary to institutionalists’ model of “environmentalization” as a top- down, internationally sponsored process, scholars note that in response to interna- tional and national actors’ failure to address climate change, subnational entities in the United States and elsewhere have begun experimenting with policies to mitigate CO2 emissions (Vasi 2007). These policies range from those like GHG targets that are primarily motivated to combat power plants’ emissions to others such as renew- able portfolio standards that were created for different reasons, but because they try to alter how energy sources are used or managed, may have implications for plants’ carbon pollution (Grant, Bergstrand, and Running 2014). As responsibility for curbing the energy sector’s carbon emissions has thus devolved to the subnational level, national environmental NGOs (ENGOs) have established more local chapters that target specific power plants and lobby their local state officials.

Importantly, at the subnational level, not only do some plants emit vastly more CO2 than others (Grant, Jorgenson, and Longhofer 2013; Jorgenson et al. 2016), but fossil fuel industries can also exercise considerable power over local citizen groups whose members’ livelihoods often depend on the jobs and tax revenues they create (Buttel 2000). Indeed, beginning with Engels’s writings (1892) on the working poor’s exposure to factories’ pollution and continuing with the “perpetrator-victim” scenario painted by most environmental justice scholars (see Pellow 2000), research on corporate pollution has tended to conceive organizations as closed systems (Davis and Scott 2007) that are impervious to any pressure their surrounding com- munities might put on them to improve their environmental performance. It is unclear, therefore, whether the local chapters of national ENGOs are sufficiently motivated and resourced today to influence the CO2 emissions of individual power plants and, if they are, whether their effects are mediated through existing subna- tional policies or independent of them. And because local ENGOs may be more sus- ceptible to co-optation by the energy industry at the subnational level, it is uncertain whether their local presence helps or hinders the effectiveness of subna- tional climate policies.

Thus, a number of important questions are unaddressed: Can civil society miti- gate the damage the energy sector is doing to the earth’s life support system at the sites where it is causing the greatest harm—power plants? If so, does civil society directly influence plants’ climate disrupting emissions or indirectly through the pas- sage of environmental policies? And to what extent might civic society transform policies that have no effect on plants’ emissions into ones that do?

Environmental Accountability 95

Scholars have made little progress in addressing these issues for two main reasons. First, researchers continue to employ theoretical frameworks that were tai- lored for times when climate policies were either nonexistent or largely symbolic in nature. Whereas today, due to the growing rationalization of institutional environ- ments, states and markets are held more accountable for climate-disrupting emis- sions. On the one hand, this creates new opportunities for civil society to pass policies that compel industry to reduce their carbon releases. On the other hand, it is not obvious what role civil society plays in affecting emission outcomes after the policies it advocates have been enacted. A second reason why our understanding of the environmental impact of local ENGOs has not advanced is that systematic data on individual power plants and their CO2 emissions have been lacking. This has forced scholars to rely on crude national estimates of emissions that obscure differ- ences in pollution caused by individual power plants and make it impossible to determine whether local ENGOs or features of polluters themselves such as their size determine emission outcomes.

Drawing on recent insights into civil society (Bromley and Powell 2012) and social movements (Vasi and King 2012), we sketch a framework for analyzing the direct and mediated effects of local ENGOs on individual power plants’ CO2 emis- sions. According to our framework, local ENGOs can significantly shape plants’ emission levels net of effective subnational climate policies and change otherwise inef- fectual policies into effectual ones. We test these propositions using data on individual power plants’ carbon pollution recently collected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under its Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). We supple- ment the quantitative analysis with qualitative analyses to illustrate the mechanisms through which local ENGOs influence power plants’ emissions. We conclude by dis- cussing the implications of our findings for sociological literature on civil society and environmental movements as well as the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan that will require states to reduce their power plants’ emissions over the next few years.

Contrary to some studies that treat civil society and social movements as occu- pying distinct spheres, our study emphasizes how NGOs can possess properties of both. As case studies suggest, characteristic of civil society and the associated world of consultation, NGOs can participate in politics and foster consent through offi- cially approved channels. By the same token, NGOs are sometimes born out of social movements and may provide a space for engaging in forms of dissent not rec- ognized or encouraged by state officials. Rather than relying exclusively on the civil society or social movement literatures, therefore, we seek to provide a richer and more nuanced understanding of NGOs by drawing on each. In the process, we sug- gest not only how ENGOs can enable certain climate policies to more effectively reduce power plants’ CO2 emissions but also shape emission outcomes independent of climate policies.

THEORIES OF CIVIL SOCIETY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

According to Weber, associational life is the sociocultural basis for political education. As such, it not only is a bulwark for democratic dynamism during

96 Grant and Vasi

modern times when monopolies restrict the expansion of free markets and govern- ments are subject to bureaucratic petrification, but also serves to integrate policies and practices in ways that benefit the public at large. Building on these ideas, several scholars have conceived civil society as occupying a middle ground between the state and market and suggested how civil society can enlist the state to address threats the market poses to the public. Civil society does this through bonding ties that raise awareness among citizens about their shared interests and through bridg- ing ties that communicate those interests to government, which must adopt policies that reflect citizens’ interests to maintain legitimacy.

Later scholars observed that market actors sometimes go to great lengths to buffer their core technologies/procedures from state policies by appearing to comply with them, resulting in a decoupling policies and practices (Meyer and Rowan 1977). Far from denying the importance of civil society, however, they insist that even when the policies it promotes fail to alter business practices, civil society can still bring about real change by forging bridges with market actors and encouraging them to identify with and voluntarily act in the interests of citizens. Applying this logic to the problem of climate change, they suggest that formal environmental poli- cies are not the only mechanism capable of driving emission outcomes (Frank et al. 2000; Schofer and Hironaka 2005). Rather, in the absence of such policies, NGOs can function as “receptor sites” that legitimate and spread environmental norms and discourse. This, in turn, puts informal pressure on domestic actors, including local businesses, to reduce their emissions.

Skeptics contend that businesses may manipulate these same “sites” to con- vince civic leaders to adopt a more managerialist perspective that focuses on minor environmental reforms and technical solutions. Especially in communities that depend heavily on businesses that extract, transport, or burn fossil fuels, energy executives may capture local chapters of ENGOs and use them to discourage citizen participation and disruptive tactics. Consistent with the idea that NGOs’ autonomy has been compromised is McAdam et al.’s (2010) finding that NGOs have no bear- ing on local opposition to pipelines and other large energy projects.

Adding to the uncertainty surrounding the efficacy of NGOs is the growing rationalization and fragmentation of the institutional environment (Bromley and Powell 2012). As rationalization spreads, the disjuncture between policies and prac- tices becomes less tolerated, contributing to fragmentation as government and civic leaders seek to isolate the actors most responsible for undesirable outcomes and develop competing solutions. In federalist countries like the United States, these developments have led to the emergence of a new national culture of accountability accompanied by heightened policy innovation and civic activity at the subnational level. In the area of environmental protection, for example, the EPA now requires industrial plants to make their pollution more transparent by submitting annual reports. At the same time, consistent with this country’s tradition of environmental federalism, states and local citizen groups are being encouraged to devise policies that curb industry’s emissions and to hold them publicly responsible for the threat they pose.

In a period of environmental accountability, the appearance of conforming to ecological norms is no longer sufficient for attaining legitimacy. Governments

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cannot, for example, rely solely on pollution prevention programs that provide businesses with technical assistance and publicize their participation but do not assess any penalties regardless of their environmental record. Governments are now expected to develop policies that force major polluters to make real improvements in their environmental performance.

In response to this shift in the institutional environment, businesses will likely still try to insulate their core processes from outside pressures. But instead of relying on previous ceremonial strategies like greenwashing and so on, they will focus more on promoting public policies that (1) use different outcome measures that provide businesses greater flexibility (e.g., emission rates rather than emission levels) or (2) advocate means (e.g., rebates) that seem capable of achieving a particular end (e.g., energy efficiency), but the end itself may have a dubious relation to the outcome sought by climate activists, which is to reduce or eliminate the absolute pounds of carbon emitted to the atmosphere.

3 An example of the former is President George

W. Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol’s mandatory cap on GHG emissions in favor of an intensity target. An example of the latter is the EPA’s Clean Power Plan that recommends several strategies to meet the rate-based goals (in pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour) it sets for states’ electricity sectors but does not explain how these goals can be translated into mass-based goals (in pounds of CO2) (Palmer and Paul 2015). In short, during the shift to environmental accountability, it will be easier to recouple policies with practices. At the same time, there may be a growing decoupling of means-ends (Bromley and Powell 2012).

Under these circumstances, environmental activists and ENGOs have an opportunity to forge bridging ties with industry that are more on their terms. Instead of such ties absorbing ENGOs into an institutional logic that privileges industry and quiet incremental change, ENGOs can exploit them to harass manage- ment, disrupt routines, generate media attention, and engage in other forms of resis- tance that have more direct and significant effects on corporate pollution. Because the institutional environment at large expects the state to hold industry accountable for its pollution, ENGOs are also in a better position to implement policies that have real consequences for emission outcomes. But once those policies are in place and they begin to lower emissions, activists themselves may add little to their effec- tiveness because, again, they are enforced by the larger institutional environment. Similarly, it is unlikely that climate activists and ENGOs will seek to pass or bolster policies favored by industry that use an outcome measure other than a level-based one. ENGOs may, though, try to bolster policies advocated by industry that pro- mote different ends because while they may not directly reduce emission levels, in principle they could. That is, ENGOs might realign an end with the latter goal by encouraging businesses to adopt routines that have the best chance of decreasing absolute emissions (see also Hironaka and Schofer 2002). For example, one of the potential pitfalls of energy efficiency policies is that because they enable power plants to economize on their fossil fuels, they may entice plants to increase their output to the point where their emission levels actually begin to rise, characteristic

3 Although closely related, energy efficiency and emission rate are conceptually distinct. When applied to power plants, the latter basically refers to the fuel energy input required to generate one unit of electric- ity, whereas the latter refers to the pounds of carbon dioxide released per unit of electricity produced.

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of so-called rebound effects (Polimeni et al. 2008; Sorrell 2009). By encouraging downstream users of electricity to keep their consumption levels low, ENGOs can prevent this from occurring and persuade power plants to invest their energy sav- ings into less destructive environmental routines.

Environmental NGOs are likely to have a significant influence on energy com- panies’ decisions because they combine elements of civil society and social move- ments. As an embodiment of civil society, ENGOs may participate in local and national politics as well as in energy policymaking—for example, by joining energy collaboratives and submitting comments to Public Utilities Commissions. At the same time, ENGOs may be involved in environmental movement’s campaigns that pressure electric utilities and elected officials to reduce air pollution and GHG emis- sions. ENGOs often use social movement tactics—protests, sit-ins, marches, boy- cotts, and so forth—to foster dissent and work outside the institutionalized policy making system. Therefore, we argue that ENGOs can both enable certain climate policies to more effectively reduce power plants’ CO2 emissions and shape emission outcomes independent of climate policies.

While scholars recognize that the environmental movement had a pervasive influence on the evolution of modern energy systems, it is surprising that the litera- ture on the energy sector “has so often treated [environmental] activists as irrelevant or passive agents” (Podobnik 2006: 13; cf. Vasi 2009, 2011). Environmental organi- zations have clashed with electric utilities and power plant operators since the 1970s. In 1975, for example, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued the Bonneville Power Administration for failing to consider alternatives to con- structing new fossil fuel–powered power plants. NRDC and other environmental organizations also published the Alternate Scenario in 1977, which suggested that future electricity demand in the Pacific Northwest could be met primarily with con- servation measures. During the 1980s, environmental groups advocated for “de- mand-side management” as a solution for the projected increase in electricity consumption. The first “collaborative”—a plan for energy-efficiency and demand- side management programs developed in collaboration by environmental groups and electric utilities—was set up in 1988 by the environmental group Conservation Law Foundation and the utility Connecticut Light and Power (Hirsh 1999:211). During the 1990s, environmental groups increased their pressure on utilities to go beyond conservation measures and invest in renewable energy as the environmen- talist agenda became dominated by the global climate-change issue.

More broadly, research about the influence of social movements on corpora- tions has examined corporate-movement dynamics operating at a national or global level (Schurman and Munro 2009; Vasi and King 2012; Weber, Heinze, and DeSou- cey 2008). This research has tended to focus on large, multinational companies that have scaled beyond a single community, causing the negative externalities of corpo- rate policies to affect a broad set of geographically dispersed stakeholders. Clearly, as corporations move across state borders, they become more difficult to formally regulate, leading activists to look for extragovernmental solutions that transcend local communities. At the same time, much activism continues to be locally ori- ented, embedded in communities and focused on particular municipalities and local businesses (Lind and Stepan-Norris 2011; Stall and Stoecker 1998; Walsh et al.

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1993). For example, many manifestations of the civil rights movement involved the organizing of community members trying to change local regulations, rules, and customs (e.g., Luders 2006). This localism seems especially prevalent among envi- ronmental activists. The strong local orientation of many activists reflects the speci- fic environmental damages that companies cause to specific geographical areas in the form of toxic dumping (Bullard 1990), destruction of lands and resources (House and Howard 2009), and air pollution (Bullard and Johnson 2000). We expand this research by developing hypotheses about the effect of local ENGOs on power plants’ emissions.

HYPOTHESES

The United States provides an ideal setting for investigating these ideas. The EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan targets the energy sector, which is the largest source of heat-trapping pollution in the United States, accounting for 40% of all CO2 emissions and one-third of GHGs overall. If this plan is approved, the nation’s fleet of existing power plants must reduce their carbon pollution 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. The EPA’s plan is founded on section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, which requires the EPA to set performance standards for stationary sources of pol- lution, including power plants.

The Clean Power Plan, though, departs from the regulation of most air pollu- tants under the Clean Air Act in that it seeks to create rate- as opposed to level- based limits on emissions. That is, while the proposed rule speaks of using 2005 emission levels (measured as total pounds of CO2) as a baseline for comparison, it also establishes standards, at least initially, for state-specific emission rates (mea- sured as pounds of CO2 emitted per unit of electricity produced). Rate-based stan- dards are favored by fossil fuel industries because they allow for economic growth and thus give power plants more flexibility to improve their environmental perfor- mance than do level-based standards. Whereas NGOs like the World Resources Institute (2006) have stressed the difficulties surrounding the communication and perception of rate-based standards. They note that not only is a rate subject to dif- ferent interpretations because its denominator be quantified in several ways (e.g., output vs. sales), but rates tend to decline over time regardless of whether total emissions total emission rise or fall, thus creating in a false sense of improvement among the public.

Partly in anticipation of the plan, which depends heavily on states and their ability to devise programs that meet the goals set by the EPA, states have been experimenting over the past two decades with policies to lower their power plants’ carbon pollution. Some of these policies, which we label direct climate policies, are explicitly climate focused and designed to curb energy-based CO2 levels by, for example, establishing emission caps or targets (Grant, Bergstrand, and Running 2014). Others, which we label indirect climate policies, were created for different rea- sons such as to promote the conservation of fossil fuels but nonetheless may have a bearing on plants’ climate-disrupting emissions. Of these, the energy industry least opposes the indirect variety because like rate-based standards, it only encourages

100 Grant and Vasi

power plans to use carbon-intensive fuels more wisely and does not attempt to con- strain their productivity.

It follows that to the degree local ENGOs are committed to closing fossil fuel plants or mitigating the absolute environmental harm they cause, they will put more effort into reducing plants’ CO2 emission levels than their emission rates. Through their public protests and participation in community hearings, local ENGOs can compel plants to reduce their levels or persuade local officials to adopt legislation like emission caps that force them to do so. But once such direct climate policies are in place, local ENGOs probably add little to their effectiveness. Whereas through their sharing of technical knowledge, local ENGOs may be able improve the effec- tiveness of existing indirect policies by encouraging plants to choose the most envi- ronmentally responsible means to conserve and economize on fossil fuels. Put differently, we can think of local ENGOs as performing two types of roles (Andre- sen and Gulbrandsen 2003). As activist organizations (exemplified by groups like World Wide Fund and Greenpeace), NGOs use confrontational or outsider strate- gies (e.g., demonstrations, rallies, lobbying) to confront polluters or advocate for policies that require polluters to reduce their emissions. As advisory organizations (exemplified by groups like the Center for International Environmental Law and Environmental Defense), local ENGOs use collaborative or insider strategies (e.g., research-based reports, knowledge construction) to craft policies that are more vol- untary in nature and acceptable to industry but still have the potential to reduce emissions if polluters follow the technical advice that NGOs offer.

Stated more formally, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 1: Power plants’ carbon dioxide emission levels are significantly lower in local areas where more local ENGOs are present.

Hypothesis 2: The efficacy of states’ indirect climate policies, but not their direct climate poli- cies, varies by the presence of local ENGOs.

DATA AND METHODS

Scholars have been slow to determine whether local ENGOs reduce CO2 emis- sions at the level of power plants because systematic, plant-specific data on CO2 emissions have largely been unavailable. Fortunately, with the recent release of the EPA’s GHGRP data file, scholars now have access to information on the CO2 emis- sion rates and levels of all major U.S. fossil-fuel power plants. Using these data in conjunction with other information on the characteristics of plants and their sur- rounding communities, we conduct the first analysis of the effects of local ENGOs on plants’ carbon pollution.

We constructed a data set that includes indicators of U.S fossil fuel electric power generation facilities’ CO2 emissions in 2010 (NAICS code 221112) as well as other relevant factors. The unit of analysis is the power plant and the data set con- sists of 1,129 cases. In this study, we examine the determinants of changes in plants’ emission rates and levels between 2005 and 2010 by controlling for rates and levels in 2005. We use a single cross-section of 2010 data rather than continuous panels

Environmental Accountability 101

because the GHGRP data were only available for 2010 at the time this study was conducted, and some of our predictors were only measured in that year.

Our sample (N = 1,129) contains about a third of all power plants in the Uni- ted States in 2010 (N = 3,406); this is because the GHGRP data on emissions pri- marily includes plants that met the EPA’s criterion of a “major source” polluter (emits 25,000 metric tons or more CO2 equivalent in a year) and were required to submit emissions reports (N = 1,426). Of these plants, 297 were excluded from our analysis because information on their internal characteristics (e.g., size) and/or 2005 emissions were unavailable. Importantly, the 1,129 plants examined here, by them- selves, account for 90.1% of all CO2 emitted by the electricity sector.

Dependent Variables

Our two measures of emission outcomes—emission rate and emission level— are taken from the EPA’s GHGRP,

4 which began requiring power plants to submit

information on their carbon pollution in 2010. Emission rate is operationalized as the pounds of CO2 released by a plant per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity gener- ated. Emission level is total pounds of CO2 emitted by a plant. Because the latter variable is highly skewed, we use a logarithmic transformation of it in our analyses. To assess the determinants of plants’’ emissions over time, we include lagged mea- sures of these variables for the years 2005 in our models. These measures effectively capture other conditions from the past that might influence plants’ present environ- mental performance. They were constructed by aggregating generator-specific data gathered by the U.S. Energy Information Administration in 2005 to the plant level.

Key Independent Variables

One of key independent variables—ENGOs—is measured as the number of environment and conservation nonprofit organizations (North American Industry Classification System NAICS-813312) in a plant’s county and is taken from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. We use this measure because it provides better granularity than state-level measures of environmental activism used in previous studies—for example, Sine and Lee (2009).

5 Because this measure is highly skewed, we transform it when conducting

our regression analyses by taking its natural logarithm; to avoid simultaneity bias, we used the measure from 2009. This is also in keeping with previous studies that have examined the effects of county-level civic engagement on environmental, poverty, and health outcomes (Grant, Jones, and Trautner 2004; Tolbert, Lyson, and Irwin 1998).

Our measures of states’ climate policies are derived from the factor analysis reported in Table I. Results indicate there are two coherent and distinct sets of cli- mate policies. The first captures whether a state has a renewable portfolio standard,

4 For more information on these data, see Grant et al. (2014).

5 An even more fine-grained measure of ENGOs’ presence would be at the city level; however, given the large number of cities that are nearby power plants, we could not collect these data, and we had to rely on the county-level measure.

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energy efficiency resource target, and public benefit fund. A renewable portfolio standard requires electric utilities to deliver a certain amount of electricity from renewable or alternative energy sources. An energy efficiency resource target is a standard used to encourage more efficient generation, transmission, and use of elec- tricity and natural gas. And a public benefit fund provides financial assistance for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and research and development. We label this factor indirect climate policies.

The second set of policies captures whether states have emission caps for elec- tricity, GHG targets, and a climate action plan. An emission cap is a CO2 perfor- mance standard designed to reduce CO2 emissions. A GHG target is a goal set for reducing GHG emissions to a certain level by a certain date. And a climate action plan is a comprehensive strategy for reducing a state’s contribution to climate change. We label this second factor direct climate policies.

Controls

To ensure that the effects of ENGOs and climate policies are not artifacts of other factors, we control for several characteristics of plants and their states. Specif- ically, using data collected by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, we con- trol for the effects of plants’ characteristics, namely whether coal is their primary fuel

6 (1 = yes) and their size (nameplate capacity) and age. And using data from

the U.S. Statistical Abstracts, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renew- able Energy Laboratory, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, we control for the effects of the following attributes of a plant’s surrounding areas, some of which may also influ- ence the formation of local ENGOs: population density (county), median income (county), coal industry influence (coal employment per 1,000 state residents), oil and gas industry influence (oil and gas workers per 1,000 state residents), Demo- cratic state (2008 Cook Partisan Voting Index), change in regional natural gas

Table I. Factor Analysis of States’ Energy-Related Climate Change Policies With Varimax Rotation (N = 50)

Emission Caps for Electricity .343 .624 GHG Targets .334 .641 Climate Action Plan .372 .428 GHG Registry .301 .187 Renewable Portfolio Standard .807 .285 Energy Efficiency Resource Target .643 .250 Public Benefit Funds .623 .231 Financial Incentives for CCS –.120 .078 Mandatory Green Pricing .313 .388 Electric Utility Decoupling .212 .305 Eigenvalue 2.453 1.465 Alpha (for underlined items) .815 .734

6 Given that the goal of several NGOs is to shut down coal plants or convert them to natural gas, the inclusion of this control means that our results likely underestimate the effectiveness of NGOs in reduc- ing carbon pollution.

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prices between 2005 and 2010, change in a census region’s net electric output between 2005 and 2010 (a proxy for increases in electricity demand that might drive up emissions), and south central or plains/mountain region where the largest gas fields by proved reserves are concentrated (1 = yes).

Analytical Strategy

In conducting ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses of the determi- nants of power plants’ CO2 emissions, we effectively control for the average differ- ences across parent companies in any observable or unobservable predictors by including dummies for each parent company in our models. In doing so, we account for the fact that there is not the same number of plants in each company. We also conducted robustness checks, the results of which indicated that our standard error estimates were not biased by heteroskedasticity. And in models not reported here, we found that the effects of our predictors were essentially the same when using a change score (instead of a lagged dependent variable) specification, suggesting that our analyses were not substantially compromised due to the unavailability of longi- tudinal data. Because it is possible that high emissions may attract NGO formation and mobilization and thus make it difficult to determine the causal role NGOs play in reducing emissions, we also use qualitative data to bolster and deepen our claim that NGOs can alter plants’ environmental performance.

RESULTS

Table II uses a lagged dependent variable specification to assess the determi- nants of power plants’ CO2 emission rates over time. Model 1 reveals that plants that rely on carbon-intensive coal as their primary fuel source pollute at increasingly higher rates. This is also true of older plants, which tend to use less efficient technolo- gies. Whereas larger plants, which reap the benefits of economies of scale, and plants situated in regions where the demand for electricity is growing or in states controlled by Democrats tend to improve their rates. Net of these controls’ effects, the presence of more ENGOs has a negligible impact on emission rates. This is consistent with our argument that environmental activists do not prioritize reducing plants’ emission intensities because that may not decrease the total amount of the carbon they release.

Model 2 adds indicators of states’ direct and indirect climate policies. Here, we see that only those measures that are specifically designed to address energy-based carbon pollution significantly curb plants’ emission rates. That less direct policies are ineffectual is consistent with other studies that find renewable portfolio stan- dards and energy efficiency programs to be insignificant determinants of plants’ emissions (e.g., Grant et al. 2014). In Models 3 and 4, we interact the two types of climate policies with our measure of ENGOs. In neither case do ENGOs signifi- cantly improve the effectiveness of these policy strategies.

7

7 Indirect and direct climate policies are correlated .44 and .60, respectively, with Democratic state, sug- gesting that states controlled by Democrats are more likely to adopt these measures. However, the inclu- sion and exclusion of Democratic state did not alter the effects of climate policies in Table II or III.

104 Grant and Vasi

Table III uses the same modeling procedure to examine the determinants of power plants’ emission levels. Importantly, emission rate and level are weakly corre- lated at .120. This not only suggests that policymakers are wrong in assuming that reductions in rates will automatically result in reductions in levels, but as we will see, factors like NGOs may have different effects on the two emission outcomes. Model 1 shows that the volume of carbon emitted by plants tends to be higher if plants rely primarily on coal, have larger capacities, and are located in areas where the demand for electricity and the price of natural gas are rising.

8 Older plants, which require

more repair and therefore are operated less frequently, tend to have lower levels of

Table II. Regression Analysis of U.S. Power Plants’ CO2 Emission Rates in 2010

1 2 3 4

Coal Fuel (1 = yes) 95.65* 94.24* 93.19* 88.16* (52.04) (52.02) (52.31) (52.54)

Size �63.79** �63.35** �63.53** �63.37** (23.57) (23.61) (23.67) (23.63)

Age 5,993.52** 6,111.12** 6,133.19** 6,375.14** (2,292.18) (2,292.21) (2,298.39) (2,314.61)

ENGOs 2.32 8.32 21.72 36.31 (22.47) (24.94) (60.55) (40.24)

2005 CO2 Rate 1,074.81** 1,072.68** 1,072.67** 1,073.35** (45.57) (44.56) (45.65) (45.59)

D in Regional Electric Output �1,501.80** �1,774.92** �1,780.88** �1,798.91** (704.98) (727.50) (729.30) (728.47)

Democratic State �7.81* �4.90 �4.31 �4.04 (7.73) (7.58) (7.62) (7.60)

Fossil Fuel Industry Influence �516.51 2,168.56 2,248.50 2,844.96 (13,703.09) (14,469.92) (14,501.13) (14,500.14)

D in Natural Gas Prices 31.32 6.71 6.98 10.09 (28.26) (33.11) (33.19) (33.36)

Population Density �.01 .01 .01 �.01 (.12) (.13) (.13) (.13)

Median County Income �.04 �.02 �.01 �.01 (.16) (.16) (.17) (.16)

South Central Region (1 = yes) �4.51 �12.37 �10.75 �5.80 (88.11) (90.07) (90.49) (90.05)

Mountain/Plains Region (1 = yes) 76.64 95.78 95.60 90.15 (161.82) (162.27) (162.58) (162.50)

Indirect Climate Policies 26.48 33.99 26.06 (33.26) (45.79) (33.29)

Direct Climate Policies �58.69* �58.04* �28.92 (31.28) (33.45) (58.95)

NGOs x Indirect Policies �6.31 (26.37)

NGOs x Direct Policies �18.38 (21.70)

Constant 39,555.49 40,555.06 40,704.03 42,503.71 N 1,129 1,129 1,129 1,129 R

2 .73 .74 .74 .74

Standard errors are in parentheses, p = *≤.05; **≤.01, one-tailed tests.

8 Population density did not significantly alter the effect of ENGOs. Nor did another possible determinant of ENGO formation that we tested but not reported here, median county income. In addition, our two measures of industry influence exerted a nonsignificant effect when combined into a single indicator.

Environmental Accountability 105

emissions. Importantly, net of these factors, plants are significantly more likely to reduce their emission levels if embedded in counties with numerous ENGOs.

Model 2 reports that ENGOs continue to depress emission levels after taking into account states’ indirect and direct climate policies. The latter set of policies also significantly reduce plants’ absolute emissions.

9 These results comport with our first

hypothesis that as activist organizations, ENGOs can pressure local plants to reduce their overall emissions independent of whatever climate policies might be in place.

In the next two models, we interact the two sets of climate policies with ENGOs. We find that states’ otherwise ineffectual indirect policies are significantly associated with emission reductions if plants are surrounded by more ENGOs. This supports our second hypothesis that as advisory organizations, ENGOs may do

Table III. Regression Analysis of U.S. Power Plants’ CO2 Emission Levels in 2010

1 2 3 4

Coal Fuel (1 = yes) .37** .38** .37** .38** (.15) (.16) (.16) (.16)

Size .32** .32** .32** .32** (.08) (.08) (.08) (.08)

Age 19.38** �18.61** �18.26** �18.69** (6.61) (6.63) (6.37) (6.69)

ENGOs �.14** �.12* .03 �.13 (.06) (.06) (.17) (.11)

2005 CO2 Level .77** .76** .76** .76** (.04) (.04) (.04) (.04)

D in Regional Electric Output 6.79** 6.27** 6.20** 6.27** (1.96) (2.03) (2.02) (2.02)

Democratic State �.01 .02 .02 .02 (.01) (.02) (.02) (.02)

Fossil Fuel Industry Influence �24.49 �36.07 �35.28 �36.31 (38.26) (40.16) (40.17) (40.31)

D in Natural Gas Prices .23** .16* .16* .16* (.08) (.09) (.09) (.09)

Population Density .01 .01 .01 .01 (.35) (.35) (.36) (.36)

Median County Income �3.41 �1.89 �9.57 �1.95 (4.46) (4.52) (4.63) (4.56)

South Central Region (1 = yes) �.18 �.13 �.11 �.13 (.24) (.25) (.25) (.25)

Mountains/Plains Region (1 = yes) .50 .52 .52 .52 (.45) (.45) (.45) (.45)

Indirect Climate Policies �.05 .03 �.05 (.09) (.13) (.09)

Direct Climate Policies �.25* �.23* �.25 (.13) (.13) (.16)

NGOs x Indirect Policies �.07* (.04)

NGOs x Direct Policies �.06 Constant �146.24 �140.56 �138.09 �141.14 N 1,129 1,129 1,129 1,129 R

2 .77 .78 .80 .78

Standard errors are in parentheses, p = *≤.05; **≤.01, one-tailed tests.

9 Other studies suggest that GHG targets and emission caps reduce plants’ emission levels (Grant et al. 2014), but ours is the first to show that direct climate policies exert significant effects on both levels and rates.

106 Grant and Vasi

little to improve already efficacious direct climate policies, but they can provide the technical expertise that plants may need to voluntarily comply with indirect policies and translate efficiency gains into actual emission reductions.

CASE ILLUSTRATIONS

The ENGOs’ Influence on Power Plants

To illustrate the mechanisms through which ENGOs may reduce power plants’ CO2 emission levels, we conducted secondary data analyses. We examined newspa- per articles using the Lexis-Nexis Academic database searching for various tactics (protest, demonstration, boycott, and lawsuit) used by ENGOs that interacted with electric utilities.

10

We found numerous cases in which activist organizations’ use of confronta- tional tactics against a power plant led to either the closure or the retrofitting of the power plant. One such example is the case of the Salem Harbor power plant, which began operating in 1952. The Conservation Law Foundation, a regional environ- mental organization, mounted a two-pronged legal assault on Salem Harbor Sta- tion. First, it filed a federal lawsuit against plant owner Dominion Energy for repeated violations of the Clean Air Act. The lawsuit cited 317 violations of smoke- stack emissions limits between 2004 and 2009 and asked the court to fine Dominion $10.7 million.

11 Second, it organized protests at the Federal Energy Regulatory

Commission “to end the plant’s reliance on ratepayer subsidies stemming from insufficient planning for reliability.”

12 Additionally, environmental groups coordi-

nated a public education campaign aiming at raising awareness about the local air pollution emanating from the power plant; in fact, the Salem Harbor power plant was frequently described by activists as one of Massachusetts’ “Filthy Five” power plants. Activists also criticized the power plant for contributing to global climate change and for burning low-sulfur coal from Colombia.

13 As the result of their

long-term campaign against the power plant, environmental activists achieved a vic- tory in 2012 when the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts approved a consent decree that requires Dominion to shut down some of its units by 2014.

Another example is the Valmont power plant, which opened in 1924, and by 2010, it supplied nearly 200 megawatts of electricity to customers in Boulder and other cities in Colorado. Activists have organized numerous protests in front of Val- mont and other power plants owned by Xcel Energy during Earth Day celebrations. In 2010, activists climbed to the top of the coal pile in front of the Valmont power

10 We used various query terms such as “[power plant name] within same paragraph as [environmental protest] or [environmental demonstration] or [environmental activism] or [environmental activist] or [environmental group] or [environmentalists].”

11 See Cate Lecuyer, “Lawsuit: City Plant Violated Clean Air Act Over and Over,” The Salem News, June 25, 2010. Retrieved September 8, 2016 (http://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/lawsuit- city-plant-violated-clean-air-act-over-and-over/article_250f257c-af68-5f0b-a5e3-cf79ab944d06.html).

12 See http://www.clf.org/our-work/clean-energy-climate-change/coal-free-new-england-2020/salem-harbor- station/.

13 See Amanda McGregor, “Fighting the Power: Dozens Brave Cold to Protest Salem Harbor Station,” The Salem News, March 2, 2009.

Environmental Accountability 107

plant, where they unfurled a large banner reading “Renewables Now” and erected fake wind turbines.

14 Environmental groups also took advantage of opportunities

offered by Colorado’s legislation that power plant permits are renewed every five years. When the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission held a hearing to solicit public comment on renewing the plant’s permit in 2009, more than 300 people turned out to oppose the plant at a rally. Environmental groups such as WildEarth Guardians, the Sierra Club, and Clean Energy Action favored shutting down the Valmont plant and questioned whether the current air-permit requirements are stringent enough to meet the federal Clean Air Act. About 50 activists addressed the commission, asking its members to deny the permit because the plant emits more than 1 million metric tons of CO2 each year.

15 While the Air Quality Control

Commission disregarded the public comments in opposition to renewing the permit and gave the plant the go-ahead to continue its operations, activists have continued to protest the power plant. The mounting public pressure and the adoption of the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act legislation have contributed to Xcel’s decision in 2010 to close the Valmont coal plant by 2017.

16

Another example of confrontational tactics used against a power plant is that of the Fisk power plant in Chicago, which opened in 1903 and was rebuilt in 1959. Before it was shut down in 2012, the power plant was among Illinois’s largest emit- ters of toxic chemicals. Not surprisingly, the power plant was the target of environ- mental protests for many decades. In 2002, a number of environmental groups organized a petition drive to get a referendum on the Chicago’s ballot asking city hall for an ordinance that would force the company that owned the power plant, Midwest Generation, to reduce pollution by 90% by 2006 or be shut down. Because of growing pressure from local activists, Midwest Generation spent mil- lions of dollars over the next several years on pollution-control equipment and sharply reduced emissions of mercury, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide. Yet, the activists were not satisfied and demanded the plant to be closed because it had no controls to cut heat-trapping CO2 emissions. A coalition of local and national envi- ronmental organizations formed in 2010 under the name Chicago Clean Power Coalition. The environmentalists fought for a “Clean Power Ordinance,” which asked the power plant to convert to natural gas, cut operating hours or shut down within four years. In 2011, Greenpeace activists climbed the smoke stack and painted “Quit Coal” in vertical letters, a publicity event that brought the issue before thousands of Chicagoans. The next year, activists were able to use local elections as an opportunity to gain support from influential local politicians and win support for the ordinance that resulted in Midwest Generation’s decision to close the Fisk power plant.

17

14 See “Five Citizens Arrested at Boulder, Colorado Valmont Coal Power Plant,” Elephant Journal, April 27, 2010. Retrieved January 2015 (http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/04/five-citizens- arrested-at-valmont-power-plant/).

15 See Laura Snider, “Public Packs Valmont Power Plant Hearing,” Daily Camera, July 14, 2009.

16 See Laura Snider, “Xcel Plans to Close Valmont’s Coal-Burning Generator. Plan Must Be Approved by PUC,” Daily Camera, August 13, 2010.

17 See Julie Wernau, “Fisk, Crawford Coal Plants Had Long History, as Did Battle to Close Them,” Chicago Tribune, September 2, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2016 (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/ 2012-09-02/business/ct-biz-0902-crawford-fisk-20120902_1_fisk-and-crawford-coal-plants-bruce-nilles).

108 Grant and Vasi

Finally, the AES Redondo Beach power plant in California is another case of a power plant that was a frequent target of activist organizations. In 1967, local resi- dents began to complain about sooty residue on their homes and in their yards, and in 1976, citizens pushed for a study to examine the noise pollution created by the power plant. During the 1990s, protesters continued to voice their opposition to the power plant’s air and noise pollution, and the city took the utility to court, albeit without success. Facing stricter regulations on smokestack emissions, the utility company installed two large tanks of ammonia to use in reducing emissions.

18 The

power plant was bought by another utility in 1997, AES, which downsized it and proposed building a new, smaller and cleaner power plant. However, environmental activists opposed the construction of the new plant, arguing that “If a new plant is built, nearby residents may be exposed to the noise and visual disturbance of cool- ing towers/big fans in addition to stacks that emit dangerous air pollutants into our backyards.”

19 After years of conflict with the utility, local environmental groups

such as the South Bay Parkland Conservancy and Building a Better Redondo suc- cessfully lobbied the city council to introduce an alternative land use plan that includes new mixed-use residential, hotel, and commercial zoning for the power plant site in 2015.

20

The ENGOs’ Influence on Indirect Climate Policies

We also conducted secondary data analyses to illustrate the mechanisms through which ENGOs may influence indirect climate policies. We examined the lit- erature on the environmental movement, and we searched newspaper articles using the Lexis-Nexis Academic database looking for evidence of environmental groups’ influence on the adoption of indirect policies such as renewable portfolio standards, energy-efficiency resource targets, and public benefit funds.

We found numerous cases in which activist organizations’ actions shaped indi- rect policies. Environmental organizations such as the Union of Concerned Scien- tists have been instrumental in developing the policy framework for Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) in California during the mid-1990s. The Union of Con- cerned Scientists lobbied for the adoption of an RPS in California because “renew- ables currently cost a little more than fossil fuels and, in a deregulated electricity market, could disappear, taking their many benefits with them” (Vasi 2011:103). ENGOs played an important role not only for the adoption of an RPS in California but also for increasing its goals. For example, while the initial RPS required electric utilities to produce 20% of their electricity from renewables by 2010, the NRDC and other environmental groups called on California’s policymakers to update the goal to 33% by 2020 (Vasi 2011). Environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the League of Conservation Voters, the NRDC, Public Citizen, and Sierra Club have played an important role in the adoption of RPS policies in many other states—

18 See Vickey Kalambakal, “Opposition to AES Power Plant Not New,” Redondo Beach Patch, April 28, 2012. Retrieved January 2015 (http://patch.com/california/redondobeach/history-of-aes-redondo- beach-power-plant).

19 See http://laist.com/2010/09/10/redondo_beach_protest.php#photo-1.

20 See Kelley Kim, “Detente on the Waterfront,” Orange County Register, July 31, 2014.

Environmental Accountability 109

Texas, Minnesota, New York, Washington, Colorado, and so forth. Many of these groups also published studies that examined the costs and benefits of national RPS proposals and introduced renewable electricity standard bills.

Beyond RPS policies, we found that environmental groups also contributed to the adoption and implementation of Energy Efficiency Resource Standards (EERS). For example, in Washington state, nongovernmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, NRDC, and National Wildlife Federa- tion have joined forces with civic, health, labor, and faith groups to support Initia- tive 937, a bill that requires large utilities to use renewable energy and to undertake energy conservation measures. In Minnesota, environmental groups—including the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Environmental Law and Policy Center, NRDC, and Sierra Club—have lobbied for the introduction of the New Generation Energy Act (which sets energy-savings targets for electric utilities) and defended it when it came under attack from the coal and mining industry.

21 These groups also

supported the creation of a Public Benefits Fund that required some local utilities to invest in renewable energy. In Texas, Environmental Defense and other ENGOs formed a broad coalition with farmers and local politicians that successfully lobbied for the adoption of an EERS requiring utilities to use end-use efficiency and to reduce load growth by 10%.

Environmental groups also worked to influence the adoption and implementa- tion of and Public Benefits Funds policies. In New York, for example, a coalition of environmental groups has lobbied for the adoption of the System Benefits Charge (SBC), established in 1996 by the New York Public Service Commission. The SBC supports energy efficiency, education and outreach, research and development, and low-income energy assistance through a surcharge on customers’ bills from the state’s six investor-owned electric utilities. When the New York Public Service Commission attempted to modify the SBC, a number of environmental groups such as Natural Defense Resource Council, Environmental Advocates of New York, New York League of Conservation Voters, and Sierra Club mobilized to oppose a Budget Amendment that could have interfered and complicated the state’s “excel- lent administration and implementation of both the Systems Benefits Charge (SBC) program and the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS).”

22 Similarly, in California,

environmental groups have supported the introduction of a public goods surcharge on ratepayer electricity use to create three public benefits funds for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and a research, development, and demonstration called the Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program. Environmental organizations have been active in the advisory board that provided strategic guidance to the Energy Commission regarding funding priorities for PIER. For example, the Cali- fornia Apollo Alliance, which included the Sierra Club, EDF, California League of Conservation Voters, Union of Concerned Scientists, and other civic groups, pro- moted the PIER program because it supports research, development, and

21 See Manuel Qui~nones, “Industry, Advocates Weighing in on Minnesota Coal Case,” Greenwire, February 17, 2015. Retrieved September 8, 2016 (http://midwestenergynews.com/2015/02/17/industry- advocates-weighing-in-on-minnesota-coal-case/).

22 See http://www.dps.ny.gov/03e0188_05m0090_4-8-05_comments/Environmental_groups_comments. pdf.

110 Grant and Vasi

demonstration of new advanced transportation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy technologies and contributes to California’s leadership in these areas.

More broadly, environmental organizations have used collaborative strategies to craft policies that are more acceptable to industry. The EDF and NRDC, for example, worked with electric utilities since the 1970s to encourage the use of con- servation measures. In 1976, EDF challenged PG&E’s request to build new nuclear power plants. Using computer models of future electricity demand scenarios, EDF demonstrated in front of California’s regulatory commission that customers and investors would benefit more from conservation programs and renewable energy resources than by building new plants (Hirsh 1999). In 1977, NRDC and other envi- ronmental organizations published the Alternate Scenario, which suggested that future electricity demand in the Pacific Northwest could be met primarily with con- servation measures. During the 1980s, environmental groups advocated for “de- mand-side management” as a solution for the projected increase in electricity consumption. The first “collaborative”—a plan for energy-efficiency and demand- side management programs developed in collaboration by environmental groups and electric utilities—was set up in 1988 by the environmental group Conservation Law Foundation and the utility Connecticut Light and Power (Hirsh 1999:211). By the end of 1991, more than 24 utilities in 10 states had worked with environmental groups to reduce energy consumption through demand-side management programs (Hirsh 1999:220).

The Midwestern Power Sector Collaborative is an example of ongoing collabo- ration between ENGOs and electric utilities. The collaborative is formed of inves- tor-owned utilities, generation and transmission cooperatives, state environmental and utility regulators, and various environmental groups (Union of Concerned Sci- entists, EDF, or coalitions of environmental organizations such as Iowa Environ- mental Council and Ohio Environmental Council, etc.). This collaborative was launched in 2011 and “seeks to inform sound federal policy based on meaningful agreement among coal-based power companies, environmental advocates and regu- lators in a region that generates most of its electricity from coal.”

23 Participants in

this collaborative were able to achieve consensus on a set of recommendations pre- sented to senior officials at the EPA in 2013, prior to the drafting of a federal rule to regulate existing power plant carbon emissions. Additionally, Midwestern environ- mental groups and their partners have promoted clean sources of electricity and worked to grow the renewable biomass industry and turn organic waste into renew- able energy.

This brief examination of specific cases allows us to identify the processes through which ENGOs have contributed to a reduction in power plants’ CO2 emis- sion levels. It has also allowed us to understand how ENGOs have influenced indi- rect climate policies. In some cases, ENGOs have used protests and demonstrations to pressure local and state elected officials to act; in other cases, ENGOs have sued electric utilities for violating the Clean Air Act; in still other cases, environmental groups published reports and worked with electric utilities and state agencies to adopt and implement RPS, EERS, and Public Benefits Funds. While space

23 See http://www.betterenergy.org/projects/midwestern-power-sector-collaborative.

Environmental Accountability 111

limitations prevent us from providing a detailed analysis of all various strategies used by ENGOs, it is important to mention that local activists’ actions were often coordinated with local chapters of national ENGOs. For example, anticoal activists from around the country received support from Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” or from Greenpeace’s “Quit Coal” campaign.

CONCLUSION

In this article, we have sought to advance our understanding of the role civil society plays in an age of environmental accountability. Toward that end, we ana- lyzed the direct and interactive effects of local ENGOs on U.S. power plants’ CO2 emissions using newly released data from the EPA’s GHGRP. Contrary to skeptics who argue that ENGOs have been co-opted by energy executives and have compro- mised their environmental goals to focus on lowering the rate rather than the level at which plants pollute, we found that even in areas where the fossil fuel industry is strong, ENGOs tend to suppress the total pounds of CO2 that plants emit to the atmosphere. This suggests that utilities are relatively open systems (Davis and Scott 2007) whose environmental performance can be influenced by a mobilized local citi- zenry. We also found that ENGOs curb carbon pollution independent of policies like GHG caps and targets that explicitly address the carbon pollution of power plants, and they enhance the effectiveness of others like renewable portfolio stan- dards and energy efficiency programs that encourage the economical use of fossil fossils. Past studies suggest the latter, indirect climate policies fail to reduce curb plants’ CO2 emissions (e.g., Grant et al. 2014), but ours demonstrates that this depends on the civil context in which plants are embedded. Finally, our qualitative analyses identified several tactics used by local ENGOs that have directly or indi- rectly reduced plants’ carbon pollution, including outsider strategies like organized protests, lawsuits, and petition drives as well as insider ones that involve the sharing of technical knowledge. Through these mechanisms, civil society is reducing emis- sion levels (as opposed to rates) and motivating plants to adopt real green practices.

Our study makes several important contributions to the literatures on the decoupling of global normative systems, social movements, and environmental soci- ology as well as public policy. We advance research on decoupling by shifting atten- tion from aggregated environmental outcomes to the sites where the disjuncture between policies and practices is most likely to occur—the power plant. By combin- ing information on local ties to international organizations with data on plant-level outcomes, we have uncovered some of the conditions under which individual plants are more or less likely to comply with or decouple from the expectations of global environmental institutions. We also extend social movement research that has focused on the diffusion of environmental policies by investigating whether policies and NGO activists actually deter pollution. And in keeping with ecological modern- ization theory (Mol 1995, 2001; Mol, Sonnenfeld, and Spaargaren 2009), our research speaks to how environmental organizations can tap into the growing eco- logical concerns of developed countries to bring about real change in corporate environmental behavior. Finally, our study suggests that if the EPA’s proposed

112 Grant and Vasi

Clean Power Plan is to be successful, state policymakers must not simply solicit the input of citizen activists in devising climate policies but also encourage the long- term involvement of activists to ensure that policies are effectively implemented.

While our study demonstrates that local ENGOs reduce power plants’ emission levels, its findings are limited to the United States. Consequently, it is unclear whether ENGOs decrease the emissions of individual plants in other countries and especially less developed ones that face a rapidly growing demand for electricity. Nor do we know if the presence of ENGOs enhances or hinders the ability of national climate policies to reduce plants’ emissions.

Future research, therefore, needs to analyze power plants throughout the world and how their CO2 emissions are affected by the presence of ENGOs. It also needs to compare the effects of national policies on plants’ emissions and explore how their effectiveness is conditioned by the ties ENGOs forge with global environmen- tal institutions. In these and other ways, scholarship can deepen our knowledge of civil society and its ability to make polluters responsible for the irreversible harm they are doing to the earth’s life support system. More research is also required to understand which social movement tactics (protests, petitions, sit-ins, lobbying) are employed most often and which ones are most effective in reducing GHGs.

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