What organizations -- in government, business, media, non-profit sectors, and so on -- play formative roles in the making and representation of this place?

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February 3, 2020

Texas produces the highest quantities of crude oil, natural gas, and lignite coal in the United States, which, on top of its long history of legislative support for conventional energy industries, contributes to its reputation as a fossil-fuel state (EIA 2017). Nevertheless, Austin, the state capital, harbors a wealth of local residents and organizations invested in transitioning to clean-energy resources. Motivations behind these investments differ widely, however, ranging from concerns about public health and social and environmental justice to creating quality jobs and spurring economic growth. During preliminary fieldwork, I identified four unique-yet- overlapping collectives of clean-energy practitioners: 1) Austin bureaucrats, 2) energy scientists and engineers, 3) energy business advocates and entrepreneurs, and 4) climate and social justice activists. Based upon initial fieldwork, these collectives appear to conceive of the risks, affordances, and the proper sociotechnical means of energy transition in divergent, if not conflicting ways.

Tim Schütz's picture
February 2, 2020

Overview of local citizen initiatives that Formosa Plastics has been involved with in Baton Rouge and Point Comfort.

Mike Fortun's picture
February 2, 2020
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The Western Oil and Gas Association is a powerful actor in the air pollution domain especially, from the 1940s up through at least 1988, but I can't tell what happened to it after that.  It may have become folded into one of the other oil lobbying organizations, like the Western States Petroleum Association, but I just don't know, which I think is a bit weird.  It was based on Los Angeles, and represented the major oil companies here: Standard, Texaco, Arco, Phillips, etc. etc. in all their changing names as they go through break ups and consolidations. Needless to say they exerted legislative power over the air, but they also shaped the knowledge landscape as part of that strategy.  So in the late 1940s and early 1950s it commissioned research from the Stanford Research Institute to begin challenges to early air pollution control measures, squaring off against the Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control District.