Policy conflicts in the siting of natural gas pipelines

ABSTRACT

Researchers often focus on the most intense conflicts, skewing our perception of the diversity and nature of policy conflicts. The paper examines the discourse engaged in the siting of three pipeline projects under construction, each with varying levels of conflict, and one rejected project of high conflict. We analyze over 700 newspaper articles that span the life of each proposed pipeline and supplement the news media data with interviews. Using these data, we compare differences in actor types, frames, and behaviors in natural gas pipeline siting processes characterized by high, medium, and low conflict. Comparing the characteristics of energy siting conflicts at varying intensities helps support corresponding portrayals of how people engage in the policy process. This paper offers theoretical and empirical guidance on understanding policy conflict intensity variation.

KEYWORDS:

• energy policy
• infrastructure siting
• discourse analysis
• policy conflict‌
• pipelines‌

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Jongeun You is a doctoral student in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver.

Jill Yordy is a doctoral student in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver.

Kyudong Park is a PhD candidate in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver.

Tanya Heikkila is Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver. She co-directs the Workshop on Policy Process Research (WOPPR).

Christopher M. Weible is Professor and PhD Program Director in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver. He co-directs the Workshop on Policy Process Research (WOPPR).

Notes

1 A gas transmission pipeline project includes multi-diameter pipelines, compressor stations, metering and regulation stations, storages, and roadways. Transmission pipelines differ from gathering pipelines (taking gas from production wells) and distribution pipelines (delivering gas to the consumer).

2 Similar to the narrative characters of villains and heroes, Sabatier and colleagues coined the devil shift, which is a tendency to demonize opponents, and angel shift to praise allies (Leach & Sabatier, 2005; Sabatier, Hunter, & McLaughlin, 1987). Our conceptualization and operationalization of good and bad actors are more generic than these related concepts.

3 The public is defined by an individual who is not reported as affiliated with any specific organization in newspaper articles.

4 Given that the ‘Good/Bad Actor’ frame is dyadic data (two-mode), we separated it from the other five frames (one-mode). The analysis of good/bad actor is represented in Table 5.

5 The average number of pro-frames per article is 0.9 and 0.6 for Constitution and Nexus, both high conflict projects. The average pro-frames per article is 1.1 and 1.3 for ASAP and Wildcat, respectively, medium and low policy conflict projects. In contrast, the average anti-frames per article is 1.2 and 1.4 for Constitution and Nexus but 0.4 and 0.9 for ASAP and Wildcat, respectively. The total average number of frames per article is 2.1 for both Constitution and Nexus and 1.6 and 1.3 for ASAP and Wildcat, respectively.

6 We did not add insights from interview data here since framing would only be seen indirectly in interview responses to being asked to describe the project broadly and to describe instances of conflict or concord. Further, we do not expect that any framing data in the interviews conducted would be fully representative of the whole debate because only a limited number of interviews were conducted as a supplemental data source for each project.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation under Grant 2017-9920.