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7
Emissions trading and other market-based policies are not implemented in a
zero transaction-cost market. In many circumstances, political and administrative
factors create the need for political negotiations and renegotiations, and various
stakeholders may influence the formulation and implementation of these cap-and-trade
programs as well as the structure of domestic and global environmental governance
(Hempel, 1996). Indeed, the democratic nature of American politics provides
numerous opportunities for various interest groups to express their voices and to exert
their influences on important aspects of emissions trading, such as goal setting, trading
mechanism design, enforcement stringency, etc., which may have significant impacts
on emission outcomes. This situation is especially true for emissions trading programs
implemented at the regional level. One notable example is Southern California’s
Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM), which is the first emissions
trading program at the metropolitan level that has been implemented for more than a
decade, and various interest groups have played important roles in its implementation
process (Drury, 1999, Thompson, 2000). RECLAIM’s spatial and temporal scopes
make it a very good case for empirically exploring the processes of interest group
politics as well as the experiences of applying an environmental policy originally
developed from pure economics to real world context.
1.2 Research Background
The Greater Los Angeles area, as one of the largest metropolitan areas in the
world, has experienced a rapid growth in both population and economy since the
beginning of the 20th century. Along with rapid industrialization and urbanization, this
Object Description
| Title | Processes, effects, and the implementation of market-based environmental policy: southern California's experiences with emissions trading |
| Author | Zhan, Xueyong |
| Author email | xzhan@usc.edu; xueyongzhan@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Public Administration |
| School | School of Policy, Planning, and Development |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-07-01 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-10-30 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Tang, Shui-Yan |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Mazmanian, Daniel A. Henry, Ronald |
| Abstract | This research provides a positive explanation of the implementation processes and effects of market-based environmental policy by conducting a case study on RECLAIM (Regional Clean Air Incentives Market), the first regional emission permits trading program that has been implemented by South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) to address air pollution problems in the Los Angeles air basin since 1994.; Firstly, I developed a game theoretic model of environmental policy implementation. This model integrates theories of administrative rulemaking, policy implementation, institutional rational choice and transaction cost politics. I argue that administrative agency tries to minimize political transaction costs of policy implementation when writing rules.; Based on the formal model, I conducted a quantitative analysis to examine the interactions between SCAQMD and its key stakeholders, such as federal, state and local governments, businesses, and environmental NGOs, during the rulemaking of RECLAIM. I found that SCAQMD is more likely to adopt rule changes suggested by state and federal environmental agencies. This research identifies the dominant role of organized interest groups, the existence of interagency lobbying, and the lack of citizen control over the rulemaking of RECLAIM. Furthermore, I conducted an evaluation of the rules governing the RECLAIM program, and I identify the major distortions of the RECLAIM rules in comparison with an ideal cap-and-trade emissions trading market. Also, I used OLS regression to examine the effects of policy difference on emission level in California between 1990 and 1999. This evaluation fails to reject the null hypothesis that using cap-and-trade (CAT) compared with using command-and-control (CAC) has no different effects on emission of both NOx and SO2 from point sources at the county level in California in the 1990's.; In summary, this research finds that the implementation of emissions trading is political, and interest group politics may distort the regulatory design and implementation of an emissions trading program. While cap-and-trade is promising to better protect our environment and natural resources, its implementation is conditioned by many political and administrative factors. Inadequate rules may come as the results of political compromises, and they may impact the functioning of an emissions trading system. |
| Keyword | emissions trading; rulemaking; RECLAIM; implementation; environmental governance |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Los Angeles |
| Geographic subject (state) | California |
| Coverage date | 1990/2000 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1719 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Zhan, Xueyong |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Zhan-2335 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume44/etd-Zhan-2335.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 18 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 7 Emissions trading and other market-based policies are not implemented in a zero transaction-cost market. In many circumstances, political and administrative factors create the need for political negotiations and renegotiations, and various stakeholders may influence the formulation and implementation of these cap-and-trade programs as well as the structure of domestic and global environmental governance (Hempel, 1996). Indeed, the democratic nature of American politics provides numerous opportunities for various interest groups to express their voices and to exert their influences on important aspects of emissions trading, such as goal setting, trading mechanism design, enforcement stringency, etc., which may have significant impacts on emission outcomes. This situation is especially true for emissions trading programs implemented at the regional level. One notable example is Southern California’s Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM), which is the first emissions trading program at the metropolitan level that has been implemented for more than a decade, and various interest groups have played important roles in its implementation process (Drury, 1999, Thompson, 2000). RECLAIM’s spatial and temporal scopes make it a very good case for empirically exploring the processes of interest group politics as well as the experiences of applying an environmental policy originally developed from pure economics to real world context. 1.2 Research Background The Greater Los Angeles area, as one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, has experienced a rapid growth in both population and economy since the beginning of the 20th century. Along with rapid industrialization and urbanization, this |
