Driving energy: the enactment and ambitiousness of state renewable energy policy

摘要: U.S. states have led the federal government in instituting policies aimed at promoting renewable energy. Nearly all research on portfolio standards (RPSs) has treated RPS adoption as a binary choice. Given substantial variation energy goals established by RPSs, we propose new measure of ambition that accounts for amount additional production needed to reach goal and number years allotted standard. By measuring policy with more precision, our analysis demonstrates many factors found affect whether state will adopt an do not exert similar effect policy’s ambitiousness. Most notably, Democratic control legislature is most consequential factor determining ambitiousness policies.