PhD Dissertation Defense: Alaina Kinol

Date/Time: Thu, March 26th, 2026 at 9:30 am (ET)

Location: Renaissance Park 909 (for Zoom access, RSVP here)

Title: “Navigating Power and Obstruction Along the Mountain Valley Pipeline”

Abstract:

Through five chapters: an introduction, three connected articles prepared for peer-reviewed publication, and a conclusion, this dissertation examines my overarching research question, which asks: how do community advocates and fossil fuel corporations negotiate power in the energy infrastructure regulatory process through resistance and obstruction, and how do their interactions enable (or constrain) the impacts of fossil hegemony in energy and climate policy?

Through qualitative analysis of interview and regulatory data, three major research questions are addressed: 1) why US federal energy regulators continue to approve new fossil fuel infrastructure despite known climate harms, 2) the impacts of fossil fuel infrastructure construction on the public and prospects for just transition, and what the role of government is in mediating these outcomes, and 3) how personal experience of fossil hegemony can contribute to energy transition by motivating resistance to injustices perpetrated by fossil hegemony, and what this resistance may look like. Across the dissertation I draw on my current and prior collaborative and independent work on climate policy and obstruction.

This dissertation includes analysis of semi-structured interviews with 22 participants, participant observation of activist gatherings between June 2023 and February 2024, and 3,920 federal regulatory filings to examine how regulators, fossil fuel corporate actors, and community members participate in the energy policy process in the contested Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) policy process and impacts of this participation for each of these groups’ ability to achieve their desired outcomes.

The findings from this dissertation culminate in an analysis of the role of obstruction in the policy processes that resulted in the MVP. The analysis contributes to theoretical and empirical research on how community advocates navigate the climate policy process with relatively less power to achieve their goals (or not).

It concludes by offering observations of the barriers to just transitions under fossil hegemony and what strategies communities use to confront them.

Committee Members:

Prof. Laura Kuhl, School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University (Chair)

Prof. Jennie C. Stephens, Professor of Climate Justice, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland

Prof. Phil Brown, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University

Prof. Jamie Shinn, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry