Shanti Gamper-Rabindran is an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, with a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.Sc. in Environmental Management and BA in Jurisprudence, both from Oxford University where she was a Rhodes scholar. She served as the August-Wilhelm Scheer Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, at the Department of Environment and Climate Policy. She is the editor of The Shale Dilemma: A Global Perspective on Fracking and Shale Development (2018), which received critical acclaim.
'With America's Energy Gamble, public policy expert Shanti Gamper-Rabindran lays out a stark case that powerful oil and gas interests have, with considerable help from the outgoing Trump administration, gained control of the lever arms of our energy and environmental policy apparatus. Our economic competitiveness, the health of our environment, and the livability of our planet are all now threatened. Read this book to be informed about the threat and armed with the knowledge of what can be done in the Biden era to undo the damage and right the course.' Michael E. Mann, Penn State University; author of The New Climate War 'America's Energy Gamble deserves a wide audience. It makes two important contributions to our understanding of the Trump era. As the first book-length treatment of Trump's aggressive environmental deregulation, it thoroughly exposes the tenuous moorings of that campaign, including its shaky connection to its economic goals. Equally importantly, it reveals the affirmative side of Trump's agenda: not just opposition to business regulation of every kind (though that was a factor), but the vision of fossil fuels as a route to national prosperity.' Dan Farber, University of California, Berkeley; author of Contested Ground: How to Understand the Limits on Presidential Power 'In detailing the actions and consequences of four years of the Trump Administration, Professor Gamper-Rabindran has wisely focused in on one important sector: US oil and gas. Her target audience is both scholars and the informed public, a target she has reached admirably, despite the difficulties in avoiding appearing partisan. Her writing is very readable, well-documented, comprehensive and enlightening.' Charles D. Kolstad, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research 'The book traces how US decades-long policies to favor oil and gas extraction, while running rough shod over communities in energy sacrifice zones, paved the way for the Trump administration's destructive policies. It highlights how the administration's anti-science and anti-democratic decision-making perpetuated the grip of the oil and gas industry when economic prudence and human survival demand a transition to renewable energy.' Daniel Kammen, University of California, Berkeley and Former Science Envoy, US Department of State