After three and a half decades at Middlebury College, Professor Christopher Klyza – the Robert ’35 and Helen ’38 Stafford Professor in Public Policy and a faculty member in political science and environmental studies – has added a seventh title to his bibliography. His most recent work, Building the American Green State: The States, the Federal Government, and Intercurrence, 1800–2000 (MIT Press, 2026), arrives as state-level climate battles heat up across the United States. The book launch will be held on October 29 at 4:00 p.m. in the Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room, offering scholars, policymakers, and the public a chance to hear Klyza unpack the historical forces that still shape environmental decision-making.
The layered nature of American environmental governance
Klyza describes his research as a deep dive into the field of American political development which treats the nation’s institutions as a set of overlapping strata. Each layer reflects the ideas and interests of its era, but the rules never simply disappear when priorities shift. For example, early-20th-century legislation championed the “wise use” of natural resources, creating agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service. By contrast, the environmental surge of the 1960s and 1970s forged a second tier focused on wildlife preservation and species protection. When these tiers collide, Klyza calls the friction intercurrence – a term he first introduced in his earlier book, American Environmental Policy: Beyond Gridlock.
Concrete clashes: from spotted owls to power lines
One of the most vivid illustrations Klyza offers is the spotted-owl controversy. In the early 1900s, Congress authorized the creation of national forests in Washington and Oregon, inviting logging companies and local towns to build economies around timber extraction. Decades later, the Endangered Species Act designated the spotted owl as a species needing protection, prompting the government to halt logging in those very forests. The resulting legal battles exemplify how two governing orders – one built for resource extraction, the other for species conservation – can lock horns, producing policy stalemates that persist for generations.
Another modern case study centers on a proposed electricity corridor linking Massachusetts’ clean-energy goals with hydroelectric power from Hydro-Québec. The plan requires a transmission line to cross Maine, where state legislators and citizen groups have invoked a host of local statutes to delay construction. While the federal administration publicly praises the project as a climate win, Maine’s regulatory shields illustrate the very intercurrence Klyza warns about: layered authorities producing a prolonged, costly tug-of-war.
Offshore wind and the limits of congressional action
Klyza also points to the offshore-wind boom as a battlefield where federal inaction forces states to act alone. States such as New York and several New England jurisdictions have authored ambitious renewable-energy targets, only to see those plans threatened when a new administration rolls back federal support. The uncertainty raises a crucial question for investors: can a project that may take fifteen years to materialize survive a sudden shift in national policy? Klyza argues that the answer often lies in the courts, which have historically decided which legal layer – federal or state – should dominate, as seen in the owl case and recent climate-related lawsuits.
Why the timing feels especially urgent
Although most of the manuscript was completed before the current administration assumed office, the book’s release coincides with a wave of legal challenges to state-level climate initiatives. Klyza notes that the Trump era attempted to dismantle the Obama Clean Power Plan through executive orders, only to have the Supreme Court intervene. More recently, the Supreme Court’s application of the “major questions doctrine” in cases such as West Virginia v. EPA and a parallel tariff dispute signals a consistent judicial stance that could curtail aggressive climate regulation.
For renewable-energy developers, the stakes are tangible. Offshore-wind projects, onshore wind farms in Republican-leaning states like Iowa and Texas, and emerging solar ventures all confront a regulatory patchwork where federal reversals can stall or undo previously approved permits. Klyza observes an ironic twist: many state-rights advocates, traditionally wary of federal overreach, are now urging alignment with national climate objectives, potentially igniting fresh federal-state conflicts.
Event details and invitation
The upcoming launch on October 29 offers a rare opportunity to hear Klyza discuss how historic “intercurrence” informs today’s battles over air-pollution control, green-energy infrastructure, and environmental justice. Attendees will learn why statutes such as Vermont’s Act 181 – which balances private land rights with forest protection – continue to generate friction between older expectations of land use and newer demands for biodiversity safeguards. The conversation will also explore how states like Vermont are defending climate-damage lawsuits against federal pushback.
By framing contemporary policy deadlocks as the product of overlapping legal and institutional legacies, Klyza’s book provides a roadmap for scholars, activists, and legislators seeking to navigate a complex governance landscape. The event promises a lively exchange of ideas, underscoring the urgency of reconciling America’s many “green-state” layers before they permanently stall the nation’s climate response.
