The following blog post was written by fellow UHPer and Fall 2024 SURE Award recipient, Grace Truslow (Political Science, ’25). Read on about Grace’s research and how she plans to utilize the SURE Award funding to further expand upon her experience!
With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, $265 billion has been invested in the United States’ clean energy economy. However, the ability for these investments to be realized is dependent on the localized approval of clean energy infrastructure. A 2023 survey of 123 builders found that a third of wind and solar projects were canceled due to community opposition. In the emerging policy debates on permitting reform such as the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, there is a tension between securing clean energy infrastructure supply and the extent of community engagement. As policymakers are balancing competing needs of infrastructure development efficiency and local input, this experiment assesses the quantitative impact on community control on support for project legitimacy within the context of wind energy infrastructure.
The existing research on community engagement in wind energy finds positive correlations between perceptions of procedural justice and positive attitudes towards projects. However, these findings rely upon retrospective reflection, creating the possibility that survey participants change their viewpoints towards community engagement based upon the outcome. Further, these findings conflict with existing political science research that attachments to procedural justice vary based on decision outcome. My experiment will test whether higher levels of community control impacts the acceptance of project outcomes, even in the context of unfavorable outcomes based on existing preferences by assessing constituent opinions before they are aware of the outcome of the project. Funding from the SURE Award will be utilized to conduct a randomized survey, modeling the community engagement process for a hypothetical, local wind energy infrastructure project. Cloud Research Connect will be deployed to send the survey to ~2,000 randomly selected respondents.
The data, separated by two branches, will be regressed to test two hypotheses: (1) A high-level of community control (local government + high community engagement) increases perceived legitimacy (i.e., fairness) of policy outcomes, compared to decisions made with a low-level of community control and (2) The effect of level of community control (process) on policy legitimacy is weaker once the policy outcome is known, compared to when the policy outcome is unknown. The data will also be used to test two research questions: (1) Is the effect of level of community control weaker when the outcome is aligned with a respondent’s preferences, compared to when the outcome is counter to respondent preferences? And (2) Is the effect of community control in Branch 1 weaker when the respondent’s preferences do not match their local government’s expected policy outcomes?
As a senior studying political science and sustainability, this project builds upon my existing coursework and research focused on the intersection of environmental and social changes, including classes such as “Infrastructure, Inaction, and Inequality.” This will also build upon my professional work in federal infrastructure policy implementation. As the US continues to build out its renewable energy grid, questions about local project legitimacy will continue to take center stage. Having a quantitative understanding of the impact of community control on project perceptions is integral for policymakers, developers, and community leaders to effectively work with the public in periods of land use change.
Interested in applying for your own SURE Award funding? Find out more about the application process here!
