The dissertation presents a political and economic history of thefederal government's program to commercialize photovoltaic energy forterrestrial use. Chapter 1 is a detailed history of the program. Chapter2 is a brief review of the Congressional roll call voting literature.Chapter 3 develops PV benefit measures at the state and Congressionaldistrict level necessary for an econometric analysis of PV roll callvoting. Chapter 4 presents the econometric analysis.
Because PV power was considerably more expensive than conventionalpower, the program was designed to make PV a significant power source inthe long term, emphasizing research and development, although sizeableamounts have been spent for procurement (direct government purchases andindirectly through tax credits). The decentralized R and D program pursuedalternative approaches in parallel, with subsequent funding dependent onearlier progress. Funding rose rapidly in the 1970s before shrinking inthe 1980s. Tax credits were introduced in 1978, with the last of thecredits due to expire this year.
Major issues in the program have been the appropriate magnitude ofdemonstrations and government procurement, whether decentralized,residential use or centralized utility generation would first be economic,the role of storage in PV, and the role of PV in a utility's generationmix.
Roll call voting on solar energy (all votes analyzed occurred from1975-1980) was influenced in a cross-sectional sense by all the influencespredicted: party and ideology, local economic benefits of the technology,local PV federal spending and manufacturing, and appropriations committeemembership. The cross-sectional results for ideology are consistent withthe strongly ideological character of solar energy politics and the timingof funding increases and decreases discussed in Chapter 1. Local PVspending and manufacturing was less significant than ideology or theeconomic benefits of the technology. Because time series analysis of thevotes was not possible, it is not possible to test the role of economicbenefits to the nation as a whole.
