NEW ORLEANS — Joshua Basseches, an environmental studies and public policy professor at Tulane University, is moving to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland to assume a similar role while continuing his research on state-level renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policies and utility company influence in clean energy transitions. Basseches authored the book 'Owning the Green Grid,' which examines how electricity policy is shaped at the state level.
About 30 U.S. states have some form of a renewable portfolio standard, laws initially designed to boost renewable energy adoption when wind and solar were more expensive than fossil fuels. The first such law was likely adopted in Iowa in 1983, and RPS policies became more widespread in the late 1990s when Arizona, Nevada, and Texas enacted them. California followed in the early 2000s, eventually setting targets requiring 60% renewable electricity by 2030 and 100% from renewable or carbon-free sources by 2045.
"Joshua Basseches sought to understand why renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policies were written in specific ways, beyond just targets and timelines," he said. He found that utility companies are distinct from fossil fuel companies and, in some states, were key enablers of renewable energy policy.
"Joshua Basseches was surprised by the extent of utility companies’ political influence and their privileged access in both legislative processes and public utility commissions," he said. Basseches also stated that states have always been influential in writing electricity policy and that public utility commissions are an underappreciated actor.
Texas, a major fossil fuel-producing state with long-standing Republican control of its legislature, was among the early adopters of an RPS in 1999, enacting it alongside utility sector restructuring. Basseches said that in 1999, Texas’s RPS policy attracted the renewable energy industry to the state. However, he noted that Texas’s recent renewable energy growth has been driven more by tax credits, transmission infrastructure, and permitting than by its RPS policy. Texas now leads the U.S. in wind and solar capacity, while California rivals it in solar capacity.
Basseches said that Donald Trump’s changes to federal energy policy have not altered the state-level focus of electricity sector policy. He emphasized that states continue to play a central role in determining the pace and costs of the transition to clean energy, with utility companies remaining influential through lobbying in state legislatures.