Regulatory Capacity, Governance Failure, and the Challenge of Urgent Environmental Problems: A Critical Analysis of Conservation Strategies for the Greater Sage-grouse

The state is traditionally believed to possess a singular capacity to impose controls to address urgent environmental problems. In the U.S., shifts in governance since the 1980s have eroded centralized public authorities’ role in environmental policy and management. Trust and confidence in federal institutions have declined to historic lows. These developments suggest potential governance failure: specifically, a situation in which government loses ability to steer public policy. Prevailing institutional norms—including excitement attached to voluntarism and collaboration—have led scholars and practitioners to overlook how these developments have weakened federal regulators’ role in environmental governance. Of particular concern is regulatory capacity: regulators’ ability and willingness to intervene to advance public policy objectives for which they are responsible. To address this question, this dissertation draws on public administration and policy studies to analyze how state-level regulatory capacity for biodiversity conservation is constrained when federal intervention is marginalized. This research focuses on a recent high-profile conflict over implementation of the Endangered Species Act to protect the greater sage-grouse—a charismatic ground-nesting bird. To respond to both economic and environmental objectives, public and private actors emphasized biodiversity offsetting as a response to obligations under the Act. Offsetting enables developers—e.g., oil and gas drillers, mining companies, road-builders—to “offset” adverse habitat impacts by conserving habitat elsewhere. These characteristics make offsetting policy useful to analyze how environmental regulatory capacity was constructed and constrained. This analysis draws on a case study of the Colorado Habitat Exchange—a ten-year effort to develop an offsetting program for sage-grouse—and a study of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s efforts to introduce national offsetting policy during this same period. Findings demonstrate the conflict between sage-grouse and energy development in Colorado placed federal and state government’s commitment to implementing the Act in crisis, exposing limits of regulatory capacity. Without regulatory capacity to impose controls on economic activity, the Exchange imploded and the national offsetting policy was withdrawn. Whether these outcomes reflect governance failure is ambiguous. Government competently steered policy but largely to avoid intervening for conservation. Findings suggest that while shifts in governance have expanded collaboration, this has undermined government’s critical role in these arrangements. Without rehabilitating this role, rapid biodiversity loss appears likely to continue.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D., Natural Resources

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctor of Philosophy

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Natural Resources

Grantor

Cornell University

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Large, Daniel

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Hilgartner, Stephen
• Fuller, Angela

• conservation
• Endangered Species Act
• environmental governance
• governance failure
• regulation
• regulatory capacity

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7298/090f-p535

Dc Identifier Other

ProQuest Submission ID: 13672
ProQuest Publication ID: 30486415

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ecommons.cornell.edu:1813/114076