Rising gas prices threaten legislation centrally focused on raising energy prices
A headline on the front page of today's New York Times announces "Gas Prices Soar, Posing a Threat to Family Budget," and the details offers a grim outlook on the near and long term energy front. If the prognosticators are correct, the increases in energy prices and the impact of those energy costs on family budgets will make a tough political playing field emissions caps even tougher.
Last year, we completed a comprehensive review of public opinion on global warming and energy prices, and released a report titled Energy Attitudes. Following up on those findings, Peter Teague and I argued in the American Prospect that anxiety over rising energy costs poses a serious political threat to those seeking to solve the problem of global warming. At the time, the data was clear that the anxiety was very deeply felt, and for the vast majority of Americans, their concerns over the price of energy far outweighed their concern over global warming. Those dynamics, we argued, must be considered in any policy and message formulation.
Importantly, those findings were based on data from 2006 through early last year. Even when our economy was relatively strong, significant majorities reported that the rising cost of energy was causing financial hardship for their families. Since then, energy prices have increased and the economy has weakened.
Today's article in the New York Times points to a set of circumstances that will make the intertwined politics of the recession, energy prices, and emissions caps even more difficult to unravel. One of the fundamental arguments made by many environmental advocates is that Americans must be willing to make small sacrifices in order to combat the problem of rising global temperatures. It will be harder, however, to convince politicians to ask their constituents to sacrifice when families are already feeling squeezed due to rising energy prices.
The Times notes:
With growth slowing, energy increases that were once easily absorbed by consumers are now more likely to act as a drag on household budgets, leaving people with less money to spend elsewhere.
While the macroeconomic effects of this are significant (Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff notes, "the effect of high oil prices today could be the difference between having a recession and not having a recession,”), how these economic trends impact individual households (and the voters within them) will pose even greater challenges for those pushing for emissions caps in the Congress.
In the political context, the comments by Phyllis Berry, a 31-year-old factory worker for General Motors, are likely more important than the quotes from the economists and energy forecasters:
[Berry] said that she used to take her four children to the movies four or five times a month. But with the cost of gas, tickets, popcorn and soda adding up to $70, they now go only once a month.
To be sure, if we could solve the crisis of global warming by cutting back on popcorn, soda and movies, we'd be a lot close to solving the problem. But what Ms. Berry seems to point to is a shift in the way that she provides for, and spends time with, her kids. Some of this is due, she says, to the cost of energy. Other economic factors are likely also to blame. But when voters like Ms. Berry are squeezed economically, and they perceive part of that squeeze coming from energy prices, arguing that we need to increase the price of gas and electricity to reduce emissions in order to address an issue voters see as a relatively low priority -- asking someone who is already squeezed to make even more sacrifice -- is not the kind of task politicians particularly enjoy.
There is, of course, a much better argument. Taking actions to actually bring down the price of energy over the medium and long term is likely something that voters like Ms. Berry will enthusiastically embrace. It's also necessary, the experts say, to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
One option is to tell Ms. Berry that she should expect to see increases in the price of electricity and gasoline to solve a problem that few voters rank as a high priority. Alternatively, we can tell her we're working to develop renewable sources of energy that will decrease her electric bill, and make it cheaper for her to fill up her tank - and in the process take a big step towards solving the climate crisis.
Only one of those options enables her to take her kids to the movies more often.
