Corporate-State Relations and State Environmental Policy: A Historical Study of Texas Flaring Regulations, 1930-2013

• In Event: 254 - Section on Environment and Technology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Corporations and State Power

Abstract

Despite increased reliance on state-level environmental regulation, researchers have not identified how and when corporations mobilize to change state-level environmental policy and the results of corporate political behavior. The purpose of this research is to examine how corporate political power works in context to state environmental regulations and the consequences of changed state-level policy. Through historical analysis, this paper examines the causes of change to Texas flaring regulations from 1930 to 2013 and resulting implications. Data sources include archival information obtained through Public Information Act requests. Archival data reveal comments made by Exxon and other corporate lobbyists directly influenced Texas flaring regulations. In contrast to current corporate claims that flaring is a byproduct of Environmental Protection Agency policies, the analysis shows (1) a regional state agency regulates corporate flaring practices, (2) flaring regulations have changed from banning the practice, to permitting it under particular situation and then expanding the circumstances when flaring is allowed and (3) flaring regulations changed when prevailing legal arrangements threatened profits and industry lobbyists mobilized around established state-level policy to reregulate the industry to better serve capitalist interests. The analysis supports a relative theory of the state. Corporations have the power to write and re-write state-level environmental policy. When prevailing political legal arrangements impede corporate profits, industries mobilize to change state policy to better suit capitalist interests regardless of environmental costs.

Author

• Katherine Ann Calle Willyard, Texas A&M University