Local Political Economy of Wind Energy Development: Evidence from Wyoming

• In Event: 50620 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 11: Environmental Spaces, Places, and Beliefs

Abstract

Political life and institutions in the US are increasingly shaped by partisan polarization that maps onto the rural-urban divide. In the sphere of energy and climate change politics, partisanship and support for renewable energy technologies are strongly correlated both in policymaking and at the individual level. At the same time, there is no shortage of strongly Republican rural areas with thriving wind energy infrastructure, while progressive affluent communities in blue states are more likely to oppose them. To understand this paradox, I explore reasons and mechanisms of support for and opposition to wind farms in Wyoming, one of the most conservative and most fossil fuel dependent state economies in the US. To do so, I draw on 6 months of fieldwork, 35 in-depth interviews with landowners, regulators, lobbyists and environmental advocates as well as computational content analysis of permitting documents of 23 wind energy projects between 2009 and 2024. I find that ranchers, local business associations and local politicians have become advocates of renewable energy in a state controlled by one of the most conservative legislatures in the country, and successfully blocked policies that disincentivize wind energy projects. However, I also argue that strong private property rights coupled with conservative values including anticollectivism and free market environmentalism both helped support wind energy buildout and prevented a stronger push for energy transition in the state.

Author

• Irem Inal, University of California-Berkeley