PARTISAN POLITICS OR CARBON CAPTURED: POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION IN THE UNITED STATES

<p dir="ltr">Despite significant legislative efforts like the Inflation Reduction Act, U.S. institutions have failed to adequately address the climate crisis, with fossil fuel production reaching record highs in 2024 and further retrenching during the second Trump administration. This dissertation examines how the coalition structures of American political parties interact with the double representation of fossil fuel interests and the outsized influence of business actors in shaping climate policy outcomes. I argue that the future of fossil fuel mitigation depends on how firms and industry groups navigate existing coalition structures within the American political party system, where powerful interests can influence both parties to minimize disruption to their economic interests. This research challenges the conventional narrative that climate politics have simply become partisan ”red meat” issues, instead emphasizing the distributive conflict dynamics where business interests—particularly those with embedded emissions in their supply chains—exert disproportionate influence across party lines. While Republicans maintain unified opposition to climate policy, Democrats are constrained to incremental progress due to their need to accommodate policy-demanding interests crucial to their governing coalition, including the very corporations whose expertise and resources they depend upon for policy development and campaign funding.</p><p dir="ltr">Through three interconnected empirical studies, this dissertation provides an analysis of how interest groups, political parties, firms, and voters interact to shape climate policy in the United States. The first paper employs a conjoint experiment using Yale Climate Change in the American Mind Survey data to investigate voter preferences for energy transition assistance policies. The second paper analyzes campaign contributions from extractive industries and their relationship to roll-call voting patterns on environmental policy in both chambers of Congress, demonstrating how increased contributions correlate with anti-environmental voting across party lines. The third paper examines firm-level lobbying behaviors through regulatory and physical risk exposure analysis, exploring how variations in climate policy exposure influence lobbying strategies across different political environments and government entities.</p><p dir="ltr">Together, these studies reveal that effective climate policy requires understanding not just partisan divisions, but the complex ways that economic power structures transcend party boundaries to shape policy outcomes. The findings suggest that building sustainable climate coalitions requires addressing the fundamental tension between the need for corporate expertise and resources in policy development and the risk of regulatory capture by those same interests. This research contributes to the distributive politics framework for understanding climate policy by demonstrating how economic power, rather than simple partisan affiliation, drives policy outcomes in the American political system.</p>