Environmental Polling Roundup – April 1st, 2022
HEADLINES
- Gallup – Americans’ concerns about the availability and affordability of energy are at their highest levels in a decade; partisans disagree sharply on whether to prioritize environmental protection or energy development (Release)
- Quinnipiac – There’s still no public consensus on what’s driving up gas prices, as Democrats continue to pin the blame on Russia and oil companies while Republicans overwhelmingly blame Biden (Release)
- Climate Nexus + Yale + GMU – Americans in coastal areas are acutely aware of climate change’s impacts on waters and coasts, and they overwhelmingly support nature-based climate solutions (Release, Topline)
- Navigator – Voters overwhelmingly want to pass a Biden economic plan that includes clean energy investment; lower household energy bills and the creation of new clean energy jobs are both major selling points (Deck on Ukraine + Gas Prices, Deck on Biden Economic Plan, Topline)
- Fossil Free Media + Data for Progress – Young voters are deeply concerned about climate change and don’t think Biden is doing enough to address it (Release, Topline)
GOOD DATA POINTS TO HIGHLIGHT
- 78% of voters say that bringing down household energy bills by as much as $500 a year as we ramp up clean energy production is a “good reason” to pass Biden and Democrats’ economic plan [Navigator]
- 76% of voters say that creating millions of good, high-paying jobs in clean energy like solar and wind is a “good reason” to pass Biden and Democrats’ economic plan [Navigator]
- By a 67%-23% margin, voters support “Biden and Democrats’ new economic plan” when it is described as expanding Medicare, lowering health care costs, and investing in clean energy like wind and solar power [Navigator]
- By a three-to-one margin (66%-22%), voters support using the Defense Production Act to boost the production of components necessary for clean energy technologies [Data for Progress]
- By a 58%-26% margin, voters support an additional tax on the extra profits that oil companies are making from the higher gas prices they are now charging [Navigator]
- More Americans say that climate change and the environment is the single most important issue to them than any other issue aside from the economy and health care [Economist + YouGov]
FULL ROUNDUP
Gallup
Americans’ concerns about the availability and affordability of energy are at their highest levels in a decade; partisans disagree sharply on whether to prioritize environmental protection or energy development (Release)
This new Gallup poll finds that Americans’ energy concerns are spiking to their highest levels in the past 10 years. Pulling from the release:
“Americans are significantly more worried about the energy situation in the U.S. than they have been in a decade. Nearly half of Americans, 47%, say they worry a great deal about the availability and affordability of energy. This is up from 37% a year ago and is more than double the percentage in 2020, when energy concern was at its low point in Gallup’s trend.
Americans have expressed similar levels of concern about energy in the past, including in 2001, 2006 through 2008, 2011 and 2012.”
Troublingly, the poll also finds that Americans are now split nearly evenly when asked to choose between prioritizing the protection of the environment or the development of energy:
- 50% agree more that “protection of the environment should be given priority, even at the risk of limiting the amount of energy supplies such as oil, gas, and coal”
- 47% agree more that “development of U.S. energy supplies such as oil, gas and coal should be given priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent”
These data points represent significant tightening since Gallup last asked this question in 2018 and found that Americans prioritized environmental protection over development of energy by a 59%-34% margin.
Breaking the numbers down by partisan affiliation, nearly all of the opinion shift against environmental protection has come among Republicans and independents. Democrats’ overwhelming preference for prioritizing the protection of the environment has essentially held firm (81% in 2018 -> 78% now), while the percentages of Republicans (31% in 2018 -> 17% now) and independents (61% in 2018 -> 49% now) who say they want to prioritize environmental protection over the development of energy have dropped by double digits.
It’s worth noting that gas prices probably aren’t solely responsible for this change in public attitudes. Voters on the right became far more supportive of fossil fuels and less supportive of clean energy development when Trump left office and the Biden administration came in, so a lot of the shift that Gallup captures here between 2018 and today is probably a reaction to the fact that we now have a Democratic president.
That said, the public clearly feels that the country’s energy situation is in a state of crisis and it is important for environmental advocates to heed those concerns and counter fossil fuel companies’ narrative about the need to double down on fossil fuels. We’ve been recommending this Climate Power / LCV / Hart Research poll memo and running Combined Defense Project compilation doc as good sources of messaging guidance for the current moment.
Quinnipiac
There’s still no public consensus on what’s driving up gas prices, as Democrats continue to pin the blame on Russia and oil companies while Republicans overwhelmingly blame Biden (Release)
Consistent with other recent public polling, Quinnipiac finds that partisans are continuing to interpret the energy crisis in fundamentally different ways.
When the poll asked who or what was responsible for the recent rise in gas prices, Americans were more likely to say that the “Biden administration’s economic policies” were most responsible (41%) than any other single rationale. Other factors that receive significant blame are “oil companies charging more” (24%) and the war in Ukraine and related sanctions on Russia (24%).
However, these topline numbers obscure the fact that few Democratic partisans blame BIden for the rise in gas prices and few Republican partisans blame anybody but Biden.
More than four in five self-identified Republicans (82%) say that Biden’s economic policies are most to blame, compared to just 3% of Democrats. Among self-identified Democrats, the vast majority blame either oil companies charging more (41%) or the war in Ukraine and related sanctions on Russia (41%). And among independents, blame is spread relatively more evenly with 39% blaming Biden, 25% blaming the war in Ukraine, and 23% blaming oil companies charging more.
All of this data underscores both the need and the opportunity for environmental advocates to take control of the public narrative about the energy crisis and communicate the risks of doubling down on fossil fuels. There’s certainly a contingent of right-leaning voters who are going to blame Biden no matter what, but persuadable voters in the middle aren’t sure who to assign blame to in the current moment and are open to several different interpretations.
Climate Nexus + Yale + GMU
Americans in coastal areas are acutely aware of climate change’s impacts on waters and coasts, and they overwhelmingly support nature-based climate solutions (Release, Topline)
There has been some compelling research in recent years to show that Americans living closer to the coasts are more likely to acknowledge the risks of climate change, even when controlling for partisanship. Adding to that body of work, this new poll of Americans living in coastal counties finds that this population is deeply concerned about climate change and widely supportive of a variety of solutions to address the crisis.
The poll finds that coastal Americans have widespread concerns about a variety of environmental threats to coastal areas, with majorities calling each of these issues a “major problem”:
- Pollution in the ocean, including plastic (81%)
- Harm to ocean wildlife (74%)
- Loss of coastal habitats (66%)
- Ocean waters becoming more acidic (65%)
- Severe storms and hurricanes (65%)
- Harm to coastal communities (61%)
- Sea level rise (60%)
- Excess carbon dioxide in the ocean (55%)
- Warming waters (55%)
And when asked how much climate change is having an effect on these and other problems, around half or more of coastal Americans say that climate change is having a “large effect” on each of the following problems:
- Harm to ocean wildlife (58%)
- Sea level rise (55%)
- Severe storms and hurricanes (55%)
- Pollution in the ocean, including plastic (54%)
- Warming waters (53%)
- Harm to coastal communities (51%)
- Loss of coastal habitats (51%)
- Ocean waters becoming more acidic (51%)
- Excess carbon dioxide in the ocean (49%)
The threats that climate change poses to coastal areas are clearly a highly salient concern for coastal Americans, as 88% agree with the statement that “oceans and beaches are very important to the future economy and quality of life in my area” – including a majority (57%) who agree “strongly.”
One of the more intriguing findings in the poll is how much coastal Americans gravitate toward “biological” or natural-sounding solutions to reduce and remove carbon dioxide emissions. When told that there a several different approaches being researched to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, for example, each one has majority support in the poll but “biological approaches” engender by far the highest initial support:
- 80% support “biological approaches such as growing more ocean plants and expanding marine ecosystems like mangroves and seagrasses”
- 57% support “electro-chemistry approaches, where a machine placed on land or on a ship separates carbon dioxide from seawater using electricity and returns the alkaline water back into the ocean”
- 56% support “mineral-based approaches that add alkaline minerals to the ocean to permanently store atmospheric carbon dioxide and de-acidify the ocean”
Similarly, when presented with a variety of specific methods to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, coastal Americans are particularly supportive of methods that would restore and leverage coastal areas’ natural ecological systems:
- 91% support planting new forests and trees
- 89% support restoring and protecting coastal ecosystems
- 87% support encouraging farmers and food producers to use sustainable agricultural practices
- 72% support farming seaweed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
- 60% support adding minerals to the ocean that can help absorb carbon dioxide
- 52% support building large, industrial vacuum machines that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground
There’s surely a long way to go to build up the public’s understanding of nature-based carbon dioxide removal, but public polling on the topic including this new poll and this 2021 report from Data for Progress show that the idea of “nature-based solutions” has a lot of instinctive appeal to the public.
Navigator
Voters overwhelmingly want to pass a Biden economic plan that includes clean energy investment; lower household energy bills and the creation of new clean energy jobs are both major selling points (Deck on Ukraine + Gas Prices, Deck on Biden Economic Plan, Topline)
Navigator has recently been testing new language to describe Bidens’ economic plan as the Build Back Better Act has stalled, and their polling has found that voters support the updated proposal – which heavily emphasizes clean energy – by an overwhelming, 67%-23% margin.
Here’s the text that the poll used to describe the proposal in full: “As you may know, Biden and Democrats’ new economic plan will expand Medicare for seniors to include hearing coverage, lower health care costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, and invest in clean energy like wind and solar power. Knowing this, do you support or oppose this new economic plan?”
Further, while health care components test as the most appealing aspects of Biden’s revamped economic plan (a finding that also consistently held true in polling about the Build Back Better Act), clean energy provisions are persuasive selling points for the new plan as well:
- After being informed that “household energy bills will come down by as much as $500 a year as we ramp up clean energy production” as a result of the plan, 78% of voters say this is a good reason to pass the plan (including 46% who say it is a “very good” reason)
- After being informed that “millions of good, high-paying jobs in clean energy like solar and wind will be created” as a result of the plan, 76% voters say this is a good reason to pass the plan (including 45% who say it is a “very good” reason)
The Navigator poll also includes some instructive findings to help environmental advocates win the public debate against the fossil fuel industry over rising gas prices. There’s clear public desire to hold oil companies more accountable for the higher prices they’re charging, as voters support a windfall tax by a 58%-26% margin when it’s described as “a new proposal that would add an additional tax on the extra profits oil companies are making from the higher gas prices they are now charging.”
Notably, when respondents were asked about the windfall tax proposal after being told that “oil companies are making $75 billion in profits, the biggest profits in 13 years” and that money raised by the windfall tax “would be sent as rebates to consumers to offset the high price of gas,” support for the windfall tax increases to an even more lopsided 68%-19% margin.
Findings like this point to a clear sense of fairness that environmental advocates can leverage in their messaging: while everyday families’ budgets are being squeezed by rising prices, oil companies are profiting at record levels – so it’s only fair that the government holds oil companies more accountable in ways that help consumers.
Highlighting oil companies’ record profits is also helpful in re-shaping the narrative around who is most to blame for rising gas prices. The Navigator poll tested a few different head-to-head arguments about who or what is most to blame for the rise in gas prices against the argument that Biden is responsible because “he refuses to unleash American energy and increase American oil and gas production.” In these head-to-head tests, an argument focusing on oil companies’ record profits tests a few points better than alternative explanations about fossil fuel dependence and oil companies’ refusal to drill using their existing permits:
- By a 54%-46% margin, voters side more with “those who say that oil companies are responsible for rising gas prices because they are gouging consumers, making $75 billion in profit–more than they have in the last 13 years–while people pay record prices at the pump” than those who say Biden is responsible
- By a 51%-49% margin, voters side slightly more with “those who say oil companies could expand production but are choosing not to as there are 9,000 approved drilling permits for oil companies where drilling hasn’t begun but is permitted to” than those who say Biden is responsible
- Voters are evenly split 50%-50% between “those who say America’s fossil fuel dependence is responsible for rising gas prices as ramping up renewable clean energy sources like wind and solar would lower prices and make America more energy independent” and those who say Biden is responsible
Fossil Free Media + Data for Progress
Young voters are deeply concerned about climate change and don’t think Biden is doing enough to address it (Release, Topline)
One of the most striking poll findings during President Biden’s presidency has been his sharply declining approval among young voters. As polls like this new survey from Fossil Free Media and Data for Progress demonstrate, frustrations over the lack of federal action on climate are central to young voters’ disaffection with Biden.
The poll finds that over three-quarters of young voters aged 18-29 (77%) are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about climate change, including 59% of young Republican voters, but young voters don’t believe that Biden shares their urgency to address the problem.
Most young voters (56%), including majorities of young voters of every partisan affiliation, say that Biden is not doing enough to address climate change. Just 20% believe he is doing the “right amount” and only 11% say he is doing “too much” on climate.
The poll also finds that proposals for Biden to hold fossil fuel companies more accountable for their pollution, including for the particular harm they’re doing to disadvantaged communities, resonate with young voters:
- By a 63%-24% margin, young voters support “the Biden administration making oil and gas corporations pay for initiatives to reduce their polluting activities”
- By a 61%-26% margin, young voters support “President Biden using his presidential authority to issue regulations to prevent pollution from the fossil fuel industry in low-income communities, communities of color, and other disadvantaged communities”
Related Resources
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