A Review of the Environmental Policy Literature from 2014 to 2017 with a Closer Look at the Energy Justice Field

Abstract

This review article documents and analyzes trends within the environmental policy literature published between 2014 and 2017. We find that environmental policy scholarship has recently shifted its focus from more traditional topics, such as watershed and ecosystem management, to other modern issues, such as climate change and energy. The environmental policy literature has increased in complexity and become more interdisciplinary in nature, which we illustrate with a discussion of the energy justice literature. The methodological approaches used by environmental policy scholars have also become increasingly diverse, with a notable uptick in statistical and modeling approaches. We find that some topics, such as policy failure, gender issues, and energy welfare policies are under‐explored, and certain regions within the world, such as developing countries, are less frequently studied. We encourage scholars to consider these gaps in the literature when developing future research.

An equity analysis of clean vehicle rebate programs in California

“…Research suggests that combining retirement with replacement can maximize the net reduction of emissions that could be produced from retired vehicles (DeShazo 2016). A complementary Plus-up component (renamed as Clean Cars 4 All in 2019, however herein we refer to Plus-up to be consistent with prior research) provides an additional rebate amount for consumers living in disadvantaged communities as identified by the California Environmental Protection Agency's (Cal-EPA) CalEnviroScreen (August 2016;Faust et al 2017). EFMP also includes a vehicle-retirement-only component, but we focused our analysis on the Retire and Replace and the Plus-up components (EFMP hereafter).…”

Contentious Dynamics Within the Social Turbulence of Environmental (In)justice Surrounding Wind Energy Farms in Oaxaca, Mexico

“…As presented above, the literature reveals indigenous peoples' claims and conflicts derived from environmental (in)justices (Avila 2018). Sustainable and renewable investments often display the same patterns of violence as those observed in extractivism: repression, criminalization, violence, death, and murder (Graff et al 2019). Although EJ scholars discuss the dynamics of subjugation in postcolonial countries in relation to EJ's tenets (e.g., Schlosberg 2013), we still have little understanding of the consequences of wind energy investments in institutional contexts in which businesses and governments do not respect the basic principles of human rights and laws or indigenous peoples' norms and customs.…”

“…This research highlights the gradual and continuous transformation of indigenous peoples' norms and behaviors owing to wind energy investments, first through the discovery of the hamaqueros-indigenous people who have moved away from their original economic and cultural livelihoods such as fishing or agriculture, and instead choose to receive payments from wind energy firms for leasing land-but also through more worrisome aspects, such as forcing indigenous girls to marry to allow wind energy investors access to communal land (e.g., Dunlap 2018a, interviews) and the assassination of human right defenders. Although this gradual and continual transformation process has been observed in environmental (in)justice research (Graff et al 2019;Maher 2018;Urkidi 2010;Walker and Bulkeley 2006;Zárate-Toledo et al 2019), I…”

“…Building on environmental (in)justice literature (Graff et al 2019;Maher 2018;Walker and Bulkeley 2006;Zárate-Toledo et al 2019), this research discusses a rarely debated consequence of renewable energy investment: the gradual and continuous transformation of indigenous peoples' norms and behaviors away from their traditional economic and cultural livelihoods. The dysfunctional dynamic that exists in governments and businesses in Mexico (Gonzalez and Pérez-Floriano 2015) and other transitioning institutional contexts is also discussed based on the conceptual understanding of the social turbulence of environmental (in)justice, which is defined as the unpredictable behavior of political and social systems when existing laws and regulations are not executed with regard to EJ's tenets.…”

The 2019 Public Policy Yearbook: Tracking a Decade of Trends in Public Policy Research

“…Our first environmental policy review article, authored by Michelle Graff, Dr. Sanya Carley, and Dr. Maureen Pirog (), documents and analyzes trends within the environmental policy literature published from 2014 to 2017. The topical focus in the literature is shifting from watershed and ecosystem management to climate change and energy, and it has an increasingly interdisciplinary focus.…”