A Tale of Two Sitings: Contentious Politics in Liquefied Natural Gas Facility Siting in California

Abstract

The siting of large industrial facilities represents a difficult planning problem. Despite decades of experience and research on siting, many of the same patterns of conflict persist. We focus on four factors drawn largely from the study of social movements—threat, political opportunity, resources and appropriation, and loss of trust—to explain the mobilization efforts of project opponents in two cases of attempts to site liquefied natural gas terminals in California. Findings from these cases indicate that either a significant endowment of resources or a combination of threat and political opportunity is important for mobilization.