Environmental Polling Roundup – February 14, 2025
Headlines
EPC Community Poll – Messaging against recent executive orders on energy and the environment is most effective when it focuses on direct harms to people, particularly higher costs [Briefing Materials, Deck]
Yale + GMU – Steady majorities of Americans continue to say that global warming is happening and caused by humans; Americans connect extreme heat and wildfires to climate change more than other types of extreme weather [Website, Full Report]
The Economist + YouGov – Americans across party lines have positive opinions of the EPA and NOAA, and only one-third want to roll back energy-efficiency regulations on appliances; Musk is falling deeper underwater with the public [Article, Topline, Crosstabs]
Data for Progress + Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) + Groundwork Collaborative – Voters are twice as likely to say that the government should increase than decrease funding for renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs, and a plurality want to reduce tax breaks for fossil fuel companies [Release, Crosstabs]
Key Takeaways
Messaging against the Trump administration’s environmental attacks is most effective if we can credibly connect these actions to higher costs. This was one of the main findings from the latest wave of the EPC’s Community Poll project. Working with partners across the movement, we tested potential responses to five of Trump’s Day One executive orders and actions on energy and the environment. For nearly every topic – including withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, suspending wind energy projects, weakening vehicle standards, and repealing environmental justice programs – message frames that emphasized how the action would increase everyday Americans’ costs were most effective at persuading voters to oppose the action in question.
Voters would much rather cut fossil fuel subsidies than renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs. Data for Progress, the Student Borrower Protection Center, and the Groundwork Collaborative find that the plurality of voters believe that the federal government should be spending less on tax breaks for fossil fuel companies. Meanwhile, voters are more than twice as likely to say that the government should increase funding for renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs than to say that the government should decrease funding for these programs.
As the administration and Congress look to make drastic cuts to environmental protections and clean energy investments to help offset more tax breaks, it’s important to emphasize both how program cuts will harm everyday Americans and who stands to benefit on the other side of the equation. To that end, Data for Progress, the Student Borrower Protection Center, and the Groundwork Collaborative find that large majorities of voters – including many Republicans – say that billionaires, CEOs, and corporations are already paying too little in taxes.
Good Data Points to Highlight
- [Climate Change] 73% of Americans recognize that global warming is happening, including 60% who say that it is caused mostly by human activities [Yale + GMU]
- [Climate Change + Weather] 66% of Americans recognize that global warming is affecting weather in the United States [Yale + GMU]
- [EPA] 61% of Americans have favorable attitudes about the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), while only 24% feel unfavorably about it [The Economist + YouGov]
- [NOAA] 60% of Americans have favorable attitudes about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), while only 10% feel unfavorably about it [The Economist + YouGov]
- [Energy Efficiency] Americans oppose rolling back energy-efficiency regulations for household appliances by a double-digit margin (34% support / 45% oppose) [The Economist + YouGov]
- [Clean Energy + Energy Efficiency] 72% of voters, including 55% of Republicans, have favorable opinions of “renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs” [Data for Progress + SBPC + Groundwork Collaborative]
- [Clean Energy + Energy Efficiency] Voters are more than twice as likely to say that the government should increase than decrease funding for renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects (42% increase / 18% decrease) [Data for Progress + SBPC + Groundwork Collaborative]
- [Fossil Fuel Subsidies] Voters are more than twice as likely to say that the government should decrease than increase tax breaks for fossil fuel companies (18% increase / 43% decrease) [Data for Progress + SBPC + Groundwork Collaborative]
Full Roundup
EPC Community Poll – Messaging against recent executive orders on energy and the environment is most effective when it focuses on direct harms to people, particularly higher costs [Briefing Materials, Deck]
As part of our collaborative Community Poll series, the EPC and partners across the movement tested possible responses to five of Trump’s Day One executive orders and announcements on energy and the environment. These five orders/actions included:
- Withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement
- Opening up more public lands and waters for oil and gas drilling, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska (ANWR)
- Suspending new government permits and leases for wind energy projects
- Weakening vehicle emissions and efficiency standards
- Repealing the government’s environmental justice programs
Our full briefing deck, as well as a recording of the presentation, are linked above. Our big-picture takeaways from this research are below.
We have a lot of effective message frameworks to choose from. Nearly every message frame that we tested significantly moved voters to oppose the executive order in question, relative to a placebo message. This tells us that we have strong messaging options, and also that public opinion hasn’t settled on these topics.
Costs consistently resonate. Across most of the Trump administration’s early actions and executive orders that we tested, those arguments that emphasized cost increases were most persuasive.
We should still tailor our messaging frames to different topics—but always aim for the Trump administration’s negative, tangible impacts on everyday Americans as the north star. For example, in our test about drilling on public lands, costs/economic arguments weren’t as effective as messages about future generations and wildlife. We don’t need to link everything to costs, especially when there’s a more credible and more intuitive argument to be made about the harms of a policy.
Trump’s fealty to oil and gas CEOs is a helpful supporting point, but the main story should be direct harms to people–especially when it comes to raising their costs and increasing pollution. In most cases, frames that focused on the oil and gas lobby were significantly impactful at persuading voters but not quite as effective as frames that emphasized costs and health.
Everything is fluid. We as a community need to keep testing new messages and experimenting within each framework, especially on energy and climate. We need to keep iterating.
Yale + GMU – Steady majorities of Americans continue to say that global warming is happening and caused by humans; Americans connect extreme heat and wildfires to climate change more than other types of extreme weather [Website, Full Report]
Steady majorities of Americans continue to say that global warming is happening and caused by humans. Around three-quarters of Americans agree that global warming is happening (73%), with just 14% denying it.
Americans are also about twice as likely to say that global warming is caused mostly by human activities (60%) than to say that it is caused mostly by natural changes in the environment (28%).
Recognition of global warming, and the fact that humans are causing it, have increased very slightly since the last time that Yale and GMU asked these questions in April 2024. In that earlier wave of the survey, 70% said that global warming was happening and 59% said that it was caused mostly by humans.
Around half of Americans continue to say that they’ve personally been impacted by global warming. Roughly half of the country (49%) says that they’ve personally experienced the effects of global warming. This figure has not changed since Yale and GMU’s previous survey wave last April, but it has been slowly rising in recent years.
In tracking this question since 2009, Yale and GMU have found that the percentage of Americans who reported being personally impacted by global warming first hit the 40% threshold in 2017 and first hit the 50% threshold in 2021.
Most Americans expect global warming to harm future generations “a great deal.” The majority (54%) believe that future generations will be impacted “a great deal” by the problem, though only 15% expect that they personally will be harmed a great deal by it.
A steady majority say that global warming is affecting the weather, with the clearest connections to extreme heat and wildfires. Around two-thirds (66%) say that global warming is affecting the weather in the U.S., which equals the figure that Yale and GMU found last April.
Americans also continue to connect global warming more to extreme heat and wildfires than to other types of weather. Below are the percentages who say that global warming is having at least “some” effect on various weather events:
- Extreme heat – 64%, including 44% who say that global warming is affecting it “a lot”
- Wildfires – 64%, including 43% “a lot”
- Droughts – 59%, including 36% “a lot”
- Flooding – 59%, including 35% “a lot”
- Hurricanes – 59%, including 36% “a lot”
- Reduced snowpack – 52%, including 29% “a lot”
- Tornados – 52%, including 27% “a lot”
While most Americans don’t see a strong link between global warming and hurricanes, the survey indicates that this connection has become clearer to people after the particularly destructive 2024 hurricane season.
The percentage of Americans who say that global warming is affecting hurricanes “a lot” has increased by seven points since last April (36% now, up from 29% in April 2024).
The Economist + YouGov – Americans across party lines have positive opinions of the EPA and NOAA, and only one-third want to roll back energy-efficiency regulations on appliances; Musk is falling deeper underwater with the public [Article, Topline, Crosstabs]
The EPA and NOAA are both overwhelmingly well-liked, and above water with Republicans. Amid attacks on their funding from the administration, The Economist and YouGov find little ill will toward either the EPA (61% favorable / 24% unfavorable) or NOAA (60% favorable / 10% unfavorable) among the American public.
Additionally, while around three in ten feel very favorably about the EPA (31%) and NOAA (33%), only small percentages feel very unfavorably about either agency (11% for the EPA and just 3% for the NOAA).
Among Republicans, who tend to feel the most negatively about federal agencies, both the EPA (48% favorable / 42% unfavorable) and NOAA (52% favorable / 17% unfavorable) are above water for the time being.
These attitudes are liable to shift quickly, however, if Trump and/or Musk place more of a public target on these agencies. USAID provides a stark case study of how quickly right-leaning audiences absorb the administration’s messaging, as the foreign aid agency–which many Americans are unlikely to have heard of just a few weeks ago–is now deeply underwater with Republicans (29% favorable / 53% unfavorable).
There is little public appetite for rolling back energy-efficiency regulations. The Economist and YouGov asked about a series of actions that the administration has recently made or announced, including rolling back energy-efficiency regulations for dishwashers, shower heads, and gas stoves. Americans oppose this rollback by a double-digit margin (34% support / 45% oppose), with only around one-third in favor of it.
Musk’s popularity continues to decline. The Economist and YouGov find that Musk is now ten points underwater in his overall favorability (42% favorable / 52% unfavorable), a quick drop from the even split that The Economist and YouGov found for him at the time of Trump’s inauguration (46% favorable / 46% unfavorable).
Americans are also twice as likely to feel very unfavorably about Musk (43%) than to feel very favorably about him (21%).
Americans’ attitudes about Musk continue to be driven sharply by partisanship, with Democrats nearly uniformly holding negative views of him (86% unfavorable) while around four in five Republicans hold positive views of him (79% unfavorable). Among independents, meanwhile, Musk is now deeply unpopular (36% favorable / 55% unfavorable).
Data for Progress + Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) + Groundwork Collaborative – Voters are twice as likely to say that the government should increase than decrease funding for renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs, and a plurality want to reduce tax breaks for fossil fuel companies [Release, Crosstabs]
Voters across party lines have positive impressions of renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs. Around seven in ten voters say that they feel favorably about renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs (72% favorable / 19% unfavorable), including large majorities of Democrats (89% favorable) and independents (71%) as well as most Republicans (55%).
Voters would much rather increase than decrease federal funding for renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects. When told that lawmakers are “considering funding levels” for a variety of government programs and investments, voters are more than twice as likely to say that the government should increase funding for renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects (42%) than decrease funding for these projects (18%).
Around one-third of voters (32%) say that funding for these projects should be kept at current levels.
Even among Republicans, who are less enthusiastic about these projects than Democrats or independents, only about one-third (33%) want to decrease their funding.
Voters overwhelmingly agree that corporations, CEOs, and billionaires are already paying too little in taxes. With Congress looking to make drastic funding cuts in order to extend or expand Trump’s 2017 tax breaks for corporations and high-income earners, voters overwhelmingly say that each of the following groups that stand to benefit are already paying too little in taxes:
- Billionaires – 74% “too little”
- CEOs – 73%
- Corporations – 68%
Even among Republicans, most say that billionaires (60%) and CEOs (57%) pay too little in taxes and half (50%) also say that corporations pay too little. Only 10% of Republicans say that corporations are currently paying too much in federal taxes.
Accordingly, 61% of voters (including 48% of Republicans) say that the government should give fewer tax breaks to large corporations.
The plurality of voters want to reduce tax breaks for fossil fuel companies. When it comes to fossil fuel and oil companies specifically, voters are more than twice as likely to say that they should get fewer tax breaks (43%) than to say that these companies should get more tax breaks (18%).
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