New Polls Show Support for Increased Energy Prices? Not So Fast.
Two polls released this week are being touted as evidence that the American public both wants the government to regulate carbon emissions and is willing to pay higher energy prices in return. Joe Romm over at Climate Progress concludes:
The public seems to have absorbed the Republican arguments and not been persuaded....Americans appear to fully understand the worst-case consequences of what they are supporting. Imagine how the polling will ultimately turn out when President Obama and his team actually launches an all out messaging blitz on energy and climate action, with a tax cut for the poor and middle class, with aggressive strategies to lower their energy bills and create green clean energy jobs, and with a clear message of the cost to Americans of inaction (bold in original).
For a slightly more restrained interpretation that nonetheless still reaches the same conclusion, the Union of Concerned Scientists just issued a press release entitled "Polls Show Opposition Message on Climate and Energy Legislation is Failing" and which leads with this statement:
A majority of those surveyed support climate and energy legislation--even if it would increase energy costs. Economic scare tactics from opponents of climate and energy legislation are failing to undermine public support for addressing global warming, according to two recent national polls.
To the credit of the UCS, their attention-grabbing lead is followed a straight-forward presentation of the poll questions and a reference to their own analysis that suggests that combating climate change and building a strong clean energy economy can be accomplished without raising consumer prices.
Yet these interpretations of the new polls are flat out wrong. In fact, they confirm the trends that we've seen in polls for the past few months about climate change: the American public supports government investment in clean energy technology more than it supports regulating or pricing carbon. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that more than two-thirds (68%) of the respondents approve of Obama's plan to spend $120 billion over the next decade to develop clean-energy technology, while only 58% approve of the proposal to charge fees to companies that emit greenhouse gases, even if the revenue is used for tax cuts. When asked the same question but only mentioning the possibility of higher utility bills and not tax cuts, the approval response goes down to 53%.
And while the ABC News/Washington Post poll does show that a strong majority supports action by the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases (75%), it also shows that 77% are concerned that such regulation would "significantly raise the prices of things you have to pay for". No reputable pollster would interpret these two separate questions to mean that the American public has internalized the reality of cost increases resulting from the regulation of carbon. Instead, these results show that people are highly concerned about the costs of any potential regulation. If the poll had re-asked the cap and trade question after raising the issue of cost, support would have gone down. And when real cost estimates are included in the questions, as they were in the Stanford poll cited below, support would have dropped even more.
Other recent polls that have explore more in-depth the issues of climate change and energy prices have come to far different conclusions. For instance, Public Agenda recently reported that while 89% percent of Americans are worried about increases in the costs of gas and fuel, only 71% are worried about global warming. Within these responses, only 32% worry a lot about global warming while 57% worry a lot about energy prices, Michael discussed in this post.
In addition, an ABC News/Planet Green/Stanford poll from July 2008 explicitly asked respondents if they supported cap and trade (without mentioning costs to the consumer), if they supported it if it meant a $10/month increase in their electrical bill, and if it meant a $25/month increase in their electrical bill. Initial support started at 59%, and dropped to 57% and then 47% when costs were explicitly included.
In the context of the current debate in Congress over climate change legislation, this slim majority of Americans who support regulation on carbon emissions (in whatever form) is a bad omen for those who want to see meaningful action on climate change. Support will likely decrease as this lengthy and heated Congressional debate drags on, especially if the debate stays centered on the costs of climate action.
A new strategy that places the politically popular clean energy investments at the heart of the agenda (and the policy) could fundamentally change this dynamic. It's interesting to note that there is no polling on support for cap and trade where the revenue is reinvested in clean energy technology innovations. That's because climate advocates are not advancing this agenda in any concerted way to date. But our repeated analysis of polling trends as well as the broad support for public investments shown in these recent polls argues that this agenda would have powerful political appeal. Instead of arguing about costs of action, climate advocates will advance a proactive agenda of job creation, clean energy technology development and direct investments to spur a clean, prosperous energy economy. Rather than cast themselves as defenders of our economy, opponents of this agenda will be forced to take a stand that is anti-jobs, anti-economic growth and anti-technology. And that's an argument we can win.
Another strategy is to emphasize a massive expansion of public transportation, something President Obama has yet to support. That would fight Global Warming, create jobs, and lower energy prices.
Posted by: libhomo at May 3, 2009 1:01 AM