Getting to net zero carbon emissions will require Congress to more aggressively regulate greenhouse gas emissions. If the idea has wide support (and it does), why can't Congress muster the will to do it? David Spence (University of Texas at Austin) tackles this question in his new book Climate of Contempt: Rescuing the U.S. Energy Transition from Voter Partisanship (Columbia University Press, 2024). Spence proposes that the problem is not that members of Congress are unresponsive to voters-but that most are responsive to the most partisan voters who perceive the most negative effects of these regulations. Meanwhile, the online information environment- rife with misinformation and spin- pushes all of Americans to become more negatively partisan over time, breeding misunderstanding of the value choices the energy transition entails, and distorting each party's sense of its political opponents. The book’s final chapter offers suggestions for overcoming these pathologies.

About the Author:

David Spence is the Rex G. Baker Chair in Natural Resources Law at the University of Texas School of Law, and Professor of Business, Government & Society at UT-Austin’s McCombs School of Business. Professor Spence’s research and teaching focuses on government regulation of the energy industry, broadly defined to include economic and environmental regulation of the entire energy sector.

He is author of Climate of Contempt: Rescuing the Energy Transition from Voter Partisanship (Columbia Univ. Press, 2024), and co-author of the energy law textbook, Energy, Economics and the Environment (Foundation Press, 6th Ed., 2023). Professor Spence earned his Ph.D in political science from Duke University, his J.D. from the University of North Carolina, and his B.A. from Gettysburg College.

Boxed lunches will be provided for the first 50 registered in-person attendees who rsvp by Friday, Oct. 11th, 2024.