Energy Policy and Environmental Possibilities: Biofuels and Key Protagonists of Ecological Change

While a growing body of research indicates the severe ecological and social costs of biofuel production worldwide, the U.S. government continues to promote the expansion of this fuel sector. Recent congressional testimony regarding the promotion of biofuels via the renewable fuel standard (RFS) offers a strategic research site for sociological investigation into the practices of key political actors and their roles in promoting and discouraging ecologically oriented change. Congressional hearings provide a window into the political process of energy policy formation, thus informing environmental sociological theory and debates. The ecological modernization perspective and its assumptions provide the analytical frame of this empirical analysis of congressional hearings during the peak legislative period concerning biofuels. This research is intended to contribute to alternative energy debates, add to our understanding of the role of various actors in energy policy formation, and further theoretical developments within sociology.