Section 4: State and Local Progress on Climate Change

Key Takeaways

• States are increasingly taking active leadership on the issue of climate change. Importantly, this progress has not slowed since the 2016 elections, with states increasingly experimenting with policies designed to curb emissions and provide incentives for new technologies to flourish.
• Nevertheless, state- and local-level organizations are having trouble replicating their success, as the strategies necessary for policy change vary state by state. Successful organizing for impact must be cross-partisan, and to date those efforts have not been built for scale.
• Three key areas that will need investment to successfully power a replicable model for climate policy movement include a power analysis of state-level dynamics, medium-term trust and relationship-building, and an improvement of the quality and depth of state-level data.

Climate change is an issue that exhibits many of the key characteristics of a classic tragedy of the commons; a warming planet respects no geographic boundaries. Accordingly, much of the attention in the climate change debate has focused on international or federal response to the issue. However, as the Trump administration retreats from leadership on climate change, there is rising interest in state and local investment. This section takes a deeper look at the response from state and local governments, and offers a framework for thinking about state-level investments given learnings about how climate and clean energy advocates are organized within separate partisan frameworks.

State-level efforts assume a larger role in thinking about right-of-center climate advocacy than has often been the case in climate community strategizing for three reasons. First, states offer a smaller—and sometimes less politicized—arena in which to try working through the divergent ways the left and right frame climate and advocacy. Second, important right-of-center constituencies are more open to action at the state level. Although right-of-center funders to date have emphasized federal solutions, major activity is already happening locally—supported by both conservative and mainstream climate funders and springing up organically. Third, the states are where future climate leadership emerges—through individuals who make their way from state into national politics, and because decades of experience in cross-partisan coalition building suggests that the most effective coalitions are formed and trust forged at the state level first.

States are increasingly taking active leadership on the issue of climate change. Despite the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, 23 states in the U.S. Climate Alliance have pledged to work towards meeting the Paris targets, even after President Trump disavowed it. These states are taking explicit steps to signal to the international community that the United States has not given up, and that it can be counted on to re-engage under different leadership at the federal level. At the 2017 Bonn Climate Conference for the Paris Agreement, the governments of Canada and Mexico joined with the Climate Alliance to create a “Leadership Dialogue” that observers described as a “quasi-supranational platform with which the EU” and other nations can engage as if it were a party to the agreement.¹ Nevertheless, one study by Climate Interactive found that if all state and local commitments are met, the resulting reductions in greenhouse gases would cover only 20 to 36 percent of the original U.S. commitment.²

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously called the states “laboratories of democracy,” and they are certainly testing grounds for a wide range of policies to respond to climate change. Utah Republicans put through a resolution exploring carbon sequestration on rangelands as a “win/win” alternative to the “major dislocation” they foresaw from federal climate programs; former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed into law a Democrat-led bill promoting biofuels.

Importantly, the pace of state-level activity has not slackened since the 2016 elections. The 2018 elections ushered in a burst of partisan action in Colorado, New Jersey, and a number of states, but the momentum had never stopped. Almost exactly a month later, former Governor Bruce Rauner (R-Ill.) signed the bipartisan Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA, Public Act 099-0906)³ intended to make the state a clean energy leader. The National Resources Defense Council—which joined the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Citizens Utility Board, and local leaders in support of the legislation—called the bill “the most significant piece of climate and clean energy policy in the state’s history.”⁴ Republican House Minority Leader Jim Durkin said it was key to creating a “diverse and reliable energy portfolio.”⁵ And Democratic Representative Robyn Gabel said it was the legislature’s “most important green energy bill.”⁶ The bill represents one model of coalition-building in that it contained a little something for many constituencies left and right: solar rebates and a net metering cap, support for struggling nuclear power plants, incentives for clean energy investment, job training, and resources for low-income communities.

Nevada’s “Solar Bill of Rights” came about through a different model driven by a partnership between libertarians and environmentalists. Florida Tea Party founder Debbie Dooley’s Green Tea Coalition used anti-monopoly arguments to attack restrictions on solar power. Her efforts expanded to Georgia and then to Nevada, where state utility regulators decreased the payment credit rate for rooftop solar panels, making the systems much more expensive.⁷ The Bring Back Solar Alliance featured a wide range of organizations,⁸ including the League of Women Voters, SolarCity, the National Wildlife Federation, Patagonia, and the Environmental Defense Fund along with groups like Green Tea, Conservatives for Energy Freedom, and the Evangelical Environmental Network. They won a 95 percent credit rate and a net metering system.

As the Green Tea Coalition model suggests, states also serve as proving grounds for modes of cooperation and for the building and testing of coalitions between groups that often find themselves ideologically opposed. State-level energy, activism, and coalition-building have been key elements of the success of other policy issues that have advanced with unusual cross-partisan coalitions at the federal level, such as criminal justice reform and education reform, among others. Those coalitions took years of trust-building and policy work at the state level to develop. For example, analysts date the beginnings of the recent wave of criminal justice reforms to Texas in the mid-2000s,⁹ although it was noticed at the national level only after 2010 and sweeping federal legislation based on state initiatives was not introduced until 2015 (and has never passed).

Because state-level work is slow and diffuse, the question of whether and how much to focus resources on fighting climate change at the state level prompts disagreement among climate advocates and funders. Some argue, as did one senior foundation executive we interviewed, that from the perspective of climate science, “we don’t have enough time” for state-led progress. Others argue, however, that “states are absolutely the only venue where things are going to be happening.”

This dilemma also exists but is less intense for right-of-center clean energy and climate advocates, both because small-government philosophies more naturally focus away from the federal level and because large-government-based policy solutions are seen as either less necessary or explicitly undesirable.

Of course, attempts to build coalitions across party lines at the state level are not new. Major environmental organizations have been working with conservative-leaning hunting and fishing enthusiasts for decades. Cross-partisan partnerships on solar energy access at the state and local level date back 10 years, while state-level efforts to build support for climate and clean energy policies among faith leaders across partisan lines began as early as 1998 with what is now Interfaith Power and Light.

Efforts to expand or ramp up state-level efforts to take advantage of contemporary openings for cross-partisan coalition-building face three distinct challenges. The first challenge is understanding where funders and organized efforts are currently operative; the second is assessing the state of play across 50-plus highly diverse state lawmaking, regulatory, and political structures; the third is forming a theory of change that accurately reflects how conservatives operate and the complexity of conservative politics (as well as the complexity of progressive politics) and the realities of cross-partisan coalition-building.

Understanding of where cross-partisan state climate advocacy is already underway, and who supports it, varies widely. Different climate coalitions and funders each have their own lists of priority states. As one climate community leader told us, “Climate Action has a campaign with state targets… the Energy Foundation has state targets… the People’s Climate Movement has state targets.” Different wings of the climate and energy efficiency movement may or may not know which states others are targeting, whether their strategies in those states are cross-partisan or not, and who is in or out of coalitions. Because organizing can work at cross-purposes, and because local actors will be recruited to join competing coalitions with differing goals, information-sharing will be a key piece of efforts to build trust across ideological lines at the national level. As one progressive climate leader told us, “What we would want is transparency, so that our members working locally have some idea of what’s coming…”

To date, state-level climate efforts have had significant limitations. An extensive review of legislative activity and communications in all 50 states since 2012 reveals several trends that state politics aficionados will already know. State legislatures are profoundly reactive. Climate is not a first-tier issue; “global warming” and “climate change” feature very little in legislators’ public communications. A review of public communications from state legislators over eight years—including social media posts, press releases, and email newsletters—shows that they are often negative, featuring vitriolic rhetoric and dubious reference material. It is thus likely that public dialogue themed around climate makes Republican action on environmental issues more difficult. In contrast, discussions of renewable energy sources like wind¹⁰ and solar power¹¹ are much more positive.

Given the increasing action at the state level, it is critical that we understand the diversity of the conservative environmental sector and its relationship to GOP politics at both the federal and state levels. When thinking about a state-based strategy, we identified a number of factors that might seem to be useful markers, but, because of the non-symmetry of the partisan divide, are either not useful or are not by themselves sufficient to develop strategy.

It is critical that we understand the diversity of the conservative environmental sector and its relationship to GOP politics.

Identity-Based Organizing

As noted earlier in the report, much cross-partisan outreach to date has been focused on association groups perceived to be closer to the GOP—veterans and evangelicals, in particular. However, the usefulness of this approach is completely dependent on whether those groups are perceived as central actors in a given state’s politics—or in national politics. In Virginia or North Carolina, for example, large numbers of retirees and the outsized role of military installations in the state economy give military voices an influence in politics that they lack in Pennsylvania or New Hampshire.

Public Opinion

Local opinion around climate has limited value in choosing where to invest, for two reasons. First, as has been repeatedly demonstrated on issues from healthcare to taxes, elected officials are far less responsive to mass public opinion than to the activism of the most connected and concentrated voters. Second, public opinion is less differentiated by region than one might expect: majorities in most states now agree that climate change is happening, that humans play a major role in it, and that utility companies should use more renewable energy.

Estimated % of adults who think global warming is happening, 2018.

In 2018, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication’s Climate Opinion Maps¹² found across states that an average of 70 percent of adults (77 percent in Hawaii, 59 percent in West Virginia) agree that global warming is happening. Belief that humans contribute to global warming averaged 57 percent with a range of 21 (64 percent in Hawaii, 43 percent in Wyoming). And an average 63 percent support requiring utility companies to generate 20 percent of their electricity with renewable energy. The range was at 21 percentage points between Washington, D.C. (71 percent) and Wyoming (50 percent). Public concern about climate, weather, and energy can be a significant motivator for state-level activity when linked to pocketbook or quality-of-life issues for which voters hold state officials responsible. As one funder active with right-of-center groups commented, “We’re seeing public opinion shifts affect governors in a way that’s not showing up for federal-level electeds.” But it’s not public opinion on broad questions of climate that is driving state-level action.

Partisan Status

It is easy to make the assumption that “purple” states—where Democrats and Republicans are closely matched—offer the best prospects for progress. But that isn’t necessarily the case. Policies favorable to renewable energy tend to cleave both the Republican and Democratic parties, as was discussed above. Experience on issues from criminal justice to education shows it is harder for intra-party policy disputes to play out in closely divided polities. A more reliable guide—though it demands a deeper political analysis—is looking at the relative strength of climate/energy advocates within their party. Specifically, this also requires a realistic assessment of the strength of the fossil fuel lobby in state politics.

Renewable Energy Production

High renewable energy production does not automatically produce a receptive environment for climate legislation. For example, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a number of red states that don’t participate in many other fields of climate work actually are some of the top producers of renewable energy. In spite of little to no climate progress in terms of state infrastructure, climate agreements, or legislation, Texas produced the third-largest amount of renewable energy, at 984.9 trillion BTU in 2015. Similarly, Alabama (686.4), South Carolina (676.2), and Georgia (622.1) ranked 8-10, respectively, while climate superstars Vermont and Hawaii produced only 83.4 and 24.9 trillion BTU of renewable energy in 2015, earning them 40th and 46th places. (Vermont and Hawaii have passed their own climate legislation and are signatories of regional and international climate agreements, including the Paris Agreement). The disconnect may come from red states’ economic incentives, rather than environmental motivations, as clean energy can help lower utility costs, create jobs, and help farmers who put wind turbines on their land. Of course, these red states are also much larger, with more land to produce renewable energy. Both of these caveats, then, indicate that any “indicator factors” are not simple, and must include careful nuance.

Existing Regulatory/Incentive Structures

A structural lens turns up significant variance in state institutions, raising the question of whether states with stronger energy and environmental infrastructure are a natural “target” for climate and energy advocacy. However, often these have been created in response to specific federal mandates and funding. The number of states that have few or no departments for environmental issues is very small: only Wisconsin, Texas, Florida, Delaware, and Arizona. None has seen successful climate legislation. While all of the states that see the most work on climate change issues do have such departments, so do many others, such as Mississippi, Georgia, and North Carolina. Therefore, while state institutional capacity may assist in some cases, it provides little guarantee of either successful or attempted legislation, perhaps because of the standard state-level focus on conservation rather than proactive work on climate change. As we discuss in the “research agenda” section below, it is not clear which state-level institutions and structures, if any, indicate a strong foundation for cross-partisan climate action.

Nor do renewable energy incentives alone predict climate-focused policies, even though the majority of Republican-supported climate legislation focuses on the renewable energy industry. While some “green” states like California (255), Washington (134), and Oregon (148) do provide among the highest number of programs, others like Vermont (49) and Hawaii (29) fall on the other end of the spectrum. Other middle-ground states that do work on climate issues, like Illinois (93), Missouri (79), and Pennsylvania (68), and non-climate states, including Kentucky (84), Texas (157), and Indiana (89), also offer many incentive programs.

Finally, joining a climate agreement is no guarantee of strong action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By no means are all of the 20 states that pledged to remain in the Paris Climate Agreement showing progress toward reducing emissions. Based on our legislative analysis, Delaware and North Carolina, for example, are relatively inactive. Rhode Island participates in 12 regional and national climate groupings but has taken little concrete action. On the other hand, Pennsylvania and New Jersey belong only to the 2010 Transportation and Climate Initiative but are very involved in pursuing renewable energy production and climate-focused state legislation, respectively, according to our analysis.

Confronted by this list of unhelpful factors and the scope and variation of the 50 United States, advocates and funders may feel tempted to turn back to the federal level. Yet with 20 states and 110 cities enacting reduction targets, and with the biggest growth in renewable energy happening in red states like Iowa and South Dakota,¹³ it’s clear that the scope for movement at the state level is vast. This is less clear at the federal level because of existing partisan gridlock and the likelihood that current districting patterns will keep both Houses of Congress closely divided, thus rendering partisan rancor high. Moreover, from decades of experience in other policy areas,¹⁴ we know that effective cross-party initiatives at the federal level usually begin from years of work at the state and local level—and we know three factors that make cross-party state organizing most likely to succeed.

• Successful transpartisan organizing allows all sides to brand policy outcomes as consistent with core ideology, not a compromise from it.
• Like all organizing, successful transpartisan organizing puts relationships at the center.
• Successful cross-partisan organizing has long time horizons and can move flexibly to exploit opportunities as they arise.

As major climate organizations assess existing investments in state-level policy advocacy, and right-of-center funders explore the state space as well, we recommend three major investments as a necessary backdrop: power analysis of state-level dynamics; patient relationship-building among constituencies, rather than rushing to legislative action; and improvement in data and best-practice sharing across states.

Power Analysis of State-Level Dynamics

Among the analyses that need to be made in developing state alliances is the relationship among utility companies, other energy interests, and partisan political elites in individual states. As was noted earlier, climate advocacy has often assumed that “business interest” equals “Republican power.” In actuality, private sector interests are highly fragmented, and ideological alliances differ from state to state and even within states. In addition, commercial interests differ wildly in how savvy they are at engaging in state politics, how willing they are to do so, and where energy/climate issues land on their scale of priorities. Like national political leaders, local leaders know when a corporate effort has teeth and when it is for public affairs consumption only. There is simply no substitute for in-depth analysis of how political and economic interests intersect across the ideological spectrum. Advocacy needs to be tailored to understanding the role utility companies and extractive industries, for example, play in state politics—as well as the relative power and sophistication of interest groups such as veterans or clergy in any given state.

Medium-Term Trust and Relationship-Building

A constant that we heard from activists and funders across the political spectrum was that, even where they did not anticipate having common advocacy projects, they would like to better know others active in the energy/climate sector across ideological divides. National leaders expressed concern that funders might be engaging different sectors in the same state, possibly working at cross-purposes.

Analysts noted that past efforts to engage conservative voices on climate lost power because those new constituencies weren’t in the brain trust of climate leadership. One Texas analyst described the role of “creation care” evangelicals in the 2010 push for a national cap-and-trade plan: “Not only were evangelicals ‘not at the table’ for climate coalition decision-making, ‘they weren’t even at the kids’ table.’”¹⁵ Veteran transpartisan activists on issues from budgeting to criminal justice stress that allowing time to build trust and set clear boundaries is vital to success, and there are no shortcuts.¹⁶ Over the long term, advocacy coalitions will be more successful when funders and coalitions are transparent about what work is going on and who is involved; and when potential partners are given time and space to build at least minimal levels of understanding and trust.

Improving the Quality and Depth of State-Level Data

Currently, energy/environment advocates and funders have no specific database or policy resource that would enable the field to have shared understandings of what is happening, and what works, at the state level. Legislative analysis for this study was based on Quorum, a database compilation of data from each state’s public legislative website. Because of limitations in access to state legislative records, this study focused only on bills introduced after 2012. Future research should consider previous historical legislation, especially as a means of better providing context for present-day amendments, appropriations, and energy portfolio legislation. A future in which state-level efforts are central to climate progress will require much more robust data collection and analytical tools around state environmental legislation. We identified two particular questions for exploration:

• Are state-level financial incentive programs working to promote environmentally friendly behaviors? Legislative data show Republicans favoring financial incentives for environmentally friendly behavior. According to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE),¹⁷ 10 states offer more than 100 incentive programs (including federal), but they are not just limited to “super” climate states like California (255 programs) and Oregon (148). Texas offers 157 and North Carolina has 102. Are incentive programs producing results? Which ones?
• How do we share best practices? Without a seamless way to share best practices, when something does work in one , there is no guarantee that it will be replicated elsewhere—and even if something fails, it may well be replicated. As one funder commented to us, “We don’t have the equivalent of ALEC to prepare model legislation.” ALEC, of course, not only prepares but promotes model legislation, and it educates and connects state legislators around its issue positions.