Pollution, Politics, and Power

“Historians of all stripes will find much to value in Tom McGarity’s impressive new book…a masterful history of the industry’s recent past… Scholars will benefit greatly from McGarity’s exceedingly useful and easy-to-understand treatment of the byzantine regulations governing the power sector… Will likely stand as the definitive recent history of the electricity industry and rapidly declining fortunes of coal, setting the standard for anyone writing on these topics.”—William Boyd, Technology and Culture

“In revealing many encouraging emission reductions by the electric power industry, Thomas O. McGarity shows what citizen action, regulation, and competition can contribute to expanding energy efficiencies and renewables like solar and wind. This book is a well-documented, eye-opening antidote to the ‘doom and gloom’ enveloping so many concerned people.”—Ralph Nader, author of Breaking through Power: It’s Easier than We Think

“Pollution, Politics, and Power is a tour de force, analyzing environmental regulation of the power industry over the last half-century. With unmatched mastery, McGarity illuminates the current policy debates by placing them in their historical context, with a bull’s-eye on coal.”—Richard Lazarus, author of The Making of Environmental Law