Date of Award

6-26-2026

Date Published

July 2026

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Public Administration

Advisor(s)

Peter Wilcoxen

Keywords

Energy Policy;Energy Transition;Just Transition;Local Government;Municipal Debt;Utility Regulation

Subject Categories

Public Administration | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes challenges in governing a large-scale transition in energy system infrastructure in the United States. Transitioning U.S. energy infrastructure toward a low greenhouse gas emission future raises challenges at all levels of government. The essays in this dissertation focus on challenges at the state and local levels, each leveraging different data and research designs to inform governments and administrative agencies about emerging issues. In the first chapter, I analyze changes in the stock of outstanding debt issued by local governments due to the U.S. boom in the extraction of shale oil and natural gas resources. Local governments in counties exposed to the boom may have issued increased amounts of debt to increase invest in public infrastructure. I use Mergent municipal bond issuance data to analyze the incremental debt accumulated within counties due to the shale boom using a triple differences model design. I find that shale boom counties accumulated a significant amount of incremental, population-normalized debt relative to other counties and that this new accumulation of debt may undermine future adaptation to the energy transition. Furthermore, a large portion of debt issued in shale boom counties during boom years was for education and water and sewer system purposes, pointing to the importance of local government entities beyond cities and counties. In the second chapter, I explore decisions made by local government managers in response to the shale boom in greater depth. I use interviews with local government officials and local government financial statements to understand decisions with respect to infrastructure investments made in response to the boom. Specifically, I explore the purpose of such investments, efforts to manage potential long-term risks associated the cost of those investments, and the implications of the type of public assets purchased and type of debt financing those assets. This chapter uses qualitative and quantitative data in a case study approach to generate specific hypotheses for further investigation. In addition, it provides context for the results the first chapter that will inform policy responses. In the third chapter, I use policy process theories of information processing and data from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Form 1 reports to analyze changes in investor-owned utility operating expenses subject to the jurisdiction of state regulators. I find evidence that distributions of change are consistent with prior literature finding that government budgets typically change by relatively small amounts each year and occasionally exhibit large and abrupt changes. This result is consistent with institutional friction inhibiting adaptive decision-making in response to changing information. In addition, I find evidence that the degree to which changes exhibit such punctuations varies across states and is associated with variations in institutional arrangements related to regulatory processes. These findings are relevant to the design of state policies and regulatory institutions in the context of the energy transition.

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Open Access

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