Privileged Accounts in the Debate over Coal-Fired Power in the United States

Abstract

This paper builds on Freudenburg’s concept of “privileged accounts” and Hajer’s work on the discourse of environmental policy by analyzing the debate over coal-fired power in the United States before and after the 2016 presidential election. A mixed-methods analysis of qualitative interviews with federal energy policy actors shows that anti-regulation narratives were central to the discourse. Results highlight shifts in pro-coal narratives as members and supporters of the coal industry adapted their discursive strategies to align with political and market transitions: whereas respondents used varied narratives during the pre-election period, the core arguments in the post-election period revolved around a more cohesive set of narratives about legal opposition to regulations and the importance of coal as a source of affordable, reliable energy. Additionally, the themes of climate denial and coal jobs—documented as dominant in previous research—were relatively rare and remained peripheral to the central discourse coalitions identified in this study.