Unconventional regulation for unconventional energy in Northern Colorado? Municipalities as strategic actors and innovators in the United States

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, the U.S. has experienced a rapid increase in domestic unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD). Continuing a legacy as an oil and gas producing state, Colorado has emerged as a leader in this development. Yet these extraction practices have created a burden for municipal governments who have had little to no previous exposure to oil and gas development and were thus unprepared to regulate it. Through the application of a strategic action field (SAF) theoretical framework, this paper examines the processes through which local governments—Fort Collins and Loveland, Colorado—have pursued divergent strategies to regulate UOGD in their city limits, and the extent to which collective incumbents and challengers in the broader field environment have wielded meaning making practices and other resources to influence these strategies. To explore this understudied area of the governance process, I primarily draw from qualitative interviews with city staff and council members. Results suggest that both meaning making and power are critical components of strategic field action, and that the social skill of meaning making is in itself a form of power.