U.S. Energy and Environmental Interest Groups : Institutional Profiles

Wenner, who has been an active policy-oriented political scientist in the area of energy/environmental legislation and litigation . . . has created a practitioner's dictionary to the most influential special-interest groups lobbying in the halls of Washington, DC, today. Her introduction offers an excellent summation of how she determined which groups were to be included and describes how she organized the groups. . . . If the purpose of a dictionary is to save time and trouble for researchers, then this is an excellent contribution to the growing literature of environmental and energy policy studies. Choice In the latter part of the 1980s, as political action committees proliferated and the number of lobbyists in Washington, D.C. increased, there was a corresponding increase of interest among scholars in examining this phenomenon. This book defines the universe of groups that lobby in the fields of environmental and energy policy regardless of which side of the many controversies in these areas they represent. Included are groups that have gained national recognition as representatives of the environmental movement; other entries are smaller organizations that focus on one special issue. Their impact may be significant on that policy, but they may be less important than some general public interest lobbies that do not specialize in environmental problems but whose influence on the American political scene makes their opinions significant. Another major category is the large trade association with many interests that go beyond the focus of this book. These groups have been in business for many years and would not fade from view if they stopped all lobbying on these issues. Yet they are some of the most important actors in this issue area today, and to ignore them would be to turn a blind eye to the reality of the political process. A third major type of group that lobbies in this area are the professional and research organizations that are formed around their membe