Lock-In, Preemption, and Local Capacity: Place-Based Constraints on U.S. Climate and Energy Policy

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

A growing body of research examines the institutional and political dimensions of the U.S. energy transition, but much of this work focuses on individual levels of government or single policy domains in isolation. This panel brings together four papers that cut across levels and domains to examine how place-based material, institutional, and political conditions interact to constrain or enable climate and energy policy. What connects them is a shared focus on the mechanisms through which local context shapes the feasibility of policy action, from infrastructural lock-in to legal preemption to variation in municipal governance capacity.

The first paper investigates the spatial logic of data center siting, showing that facilities disproportionately co-locate near fossil-fuel generation and water-stressed basins. These patterns create infrastructural path dependencies that reinforce carbon-intensive energy systems and complicate long-term resource planning. The second paper shifts to Congress, examining how district-level economic, environmental, and social conditions shape legislative attention to energy policy. It finds that local renewable energy capacity, disaster exposure, and housing cost burdens drive sponsorship and co-sponsorship activity, with partisanship moderating these relationships in ways that can both deepen and weaken polarization depending on the type of pressure at play. The third paper addresses the legal terrain of local climate governance, analyzing how state environmental preemption laws constrain municipal climate action. Using qualitative comparative analysis across the largest cities in all fifty states, it identifies the conditions under which cities adopt climate action plans despite unfavorable state environments, including home rule authority, mayoral leadership, and transnational network participation. The fourth paper complements this institutional focus by surveying nearly 500 local officials to examine how U.S. municipalities engage in experimental energy governance. It classifies cities by their roles as direct implementers or facilitators and tests what characteristics predict each approach.

Together, these papers provide a multi-level account of how physical infrastructure, legislative incentives, intergovernmental authority, and local governance capacity shape the trajectory of U.S. climate and energy policy. By spanning federal legislative behavior, state preemption regimes, and municipal governance, the panel illustrates how constraints at one level of government can compound or offset constraints at another. A district where renewable energy jobs are growing may produce legislative engagement in Congress, but the city at its center may still face legal barriers to adopting its own climate plan. A municipality with strong home rule authority may act boldly on decarbonization while the data centers sited nearby lock the region into fossil-fuel dependence for decades. The panel invites discussion about how researchers and practitioners can better account for these cross-level interactions when designing policy and evaluating institutional capacity for the energy transition.

Policy Area

• Natural Resource, Energy, and Environmental Policy

Chair

• Seokkyun Woo, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Discussants

• Rachel M. Krause, University of Kansas

• Dasom Lee, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Organizer

• Dasom Lee, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Individual Presentations

• Local Sustainability Conditions in the U.S. Energy Transition: District-Level Drivers of Congressional Attention to Energy Policy - Presenting Author: Ha B. Vien, North Carolina State University

• State Environmental Preemption and Local Climate Governance - Presenting Author: Jieun Kim, Old Dominion University

• Unfolding Local Roles in Energy Governance Experiments: Evidence from U.S. Cities - Presenting Author: Kawon Song, University of Kansas