‘For us climate action never dies’: a legislative process analysis of environmental movement tactics in Oregon

ABSTRACT

In this article, I discuss how environmental groups in Oregon have intervened in the legislative process in the last 5 years to advocate for climate policy. Methodologically, I draw on 76 interviews with Oregon legislators, state staff members, professional lobbyists, and environmental leaders, as well as participant observation and archival research. I describe how environmental groups work to influence policymaking by: (1) recruiting and positioning legislative champions on environmental committees, (2) building relationships with legislators and following the conventions of the arena (interactional decorum, incremental timeline), and (3) shoring up legislator’s commitments by framing climate policy as an ‘economic engine.’ I argue that relationships between environmental leaders and political elites are a key mechanism in the progression of the cap and invest bill through the legislative process and the development of the 2020 executive order on climate. However, subtle forms of polarization like bipartisan norms within unified governments remain a significant barrier to achieving policy goals on climate.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate governance
• environmental policymaking
• cap and trade policy
• framing

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by (1) the Sydney S. Spivack Program in Applied Social Research and Social Policy Community Action Research Award from the American Sociological Association, (2) the Atkinson Research Expense Award from Willamette University, with startup funds from (3) the Center for Religion, Law, and Democracy at Willamette University. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Conference on Environmental Politics and Governance and the American Sociological Association. Thank you to my research assistants, faculty supporters especially Prof. Richard Ellis, and Oregon climate activists.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Janet A. Lorenzen

Janet A. Lorenzen is an associate professor of sociology at Willamette University in Salem, OR. They study processes of social change related to climate action including governance and policymaking, social movement tactics, anti-consumption and lifestyle change. They have articles on responses to climate change published in: Environmental Politics, Human Ecology Review, Humanity & Society, Sociological Forum, Sociology Compass, and Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change.