15. Institutional Void and Stakeholder Leadership: Implementing Renewable Energy Standards in Minnesota

Many state-level policies in the United States have been adopted in an effort to reduce carbon emissions, reduce exposure to fuel price volatility, and encourage economic development by creating a renewable energy industry. Experience with such instruments, however, has been mixed. In this chapter, we argue that a series of obstacles prevent a single actor to take the lead in designing the rules necessary to fill the institutional void that is created by the introduction of novel command and control energy policies. Using case study evidence from the state of Minnesota, we find that the collective action problem we describe in this chapter tends to impede the implementation of renewable portfolio standards despite the new and additional certainty that has been provided by a legislated mandate.