Environmental Polling Roundup – September 13, 2024
HEADLINES
Data for Progress – Two years after its passage, voters overwhelmingly support the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate provisions [Article, Crosstabs]
Yale + GMU – Providing a better life for future generations is consistently voters’ top rationale for addressing global warming; preventing extreme weather has also become a more salient reason in recent years [Article]
Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) – Solar continues to be voters’ favorite source of energy, with most saying that it’s good for the economy and costs; pro-solar arguments consistently win in head-to-head messaging tests against common criticisms about reliability, land use, and supply chains [Release, Deck]
Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) + Data for Progress – Voters across party lines support legal action to hold the plastics and fossil fuel industries accountable for plastic pollution [Article, Crosstabs]
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Solar continues to be Americans’ favored source of energy, and is importantly seen as both an economy-boosting and cost-saving energy source. A new, bipartisan poll commissioned by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) finds that around three-quarters of voters want their electric utility to use more electricity generated by solar power. Additionally, large majorities agree that solar power is good for America’s economy, creates good-paying jobs, and that increasing its use would save American families money.
Advocates should lean into narratives about the Inflation Reduction Act’s positive impacts for U.S. workers and manufacturing. Data for Progress finds that the IRA’s standards to ensure that clean energy investments go to American workers and U.S. manufacturing are the single most popular climate-related provision of the law. Voters also overwhelmingly support the law’s provision to ramp up American-made clean energy technologies, and around half believe that the law will cause the manufacturing industry to grow over the next few years.
GOOD DATA POINTS TO HIGHLIGHT
- [Inflation Reduction Act] Voters support the Inflation Reduction Act by a 71%-20% margin after reading a brief description of it [Data for Progress]
- [Inflation Reduction Act + Jobs] 79% of voters support the IRA’s standards to ensure that businesses receiving government clean energy tax credits pay their workers a fair wage and make their goods in America [Data for Progress]
- [Solar] 84% of voters support the construction of a utility-scale solar farm near their own community [SEIA]
- [Solar] 75% of voters agree that solar power is good for America’s economy [SEIA]
- [Solar] 74% of voters agree that increasing our use of solar power would save American families money [SEIA]
- [Solar] 74% of voters agree that their electric utility should get more of its electricity from solar power [SEIA]
- [Solar] 66% of voters agree that solar power creates good-paying jobs [SEIA]
- [Plastic Pollution] 70% of voters support officials in their state taking legal action against the plastics and fossil fuel industries for their role in plastic pollution, after learning that similar legal action is being considered in other states [CCI + Data for Progress]
FULL ROUNDUP
Data for Progress – Two years after its passage, voters overwhelmingly support the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate provisions [Article, Crosstabs]
Seven in ten voters support the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) when they see a basic explanation of it. Voters support the IRA by an overwhelming 71%-20% margin when provided with the following description: “The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 invests over $430 billion in clean energy and Affordable Care Act healthcare
premiums. It also allows Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices and pays down the national debt by $300 billion.”
The IRA has proved enduringly popular, and Navigator also found that seven in ten voters supported the law earlier this year based on a similarly brief description of it.
One important caveat about these consistently strong poll numbers for the IRA is that voters typically don’t know what’s in the bill unless they’re given basic information about it, as they are in these polls. Data for Progress finds that only one in five voters (20%) have heard “a lot” about the IRA, with most hearing little or nothing about it.
Data for Progress also finds that the IRA continues to hold a significant amount of cross-party appeal, with nearly nine in ten Democrats (89%), more than two-thirds of independents (72%), and half of Republicans (52%) saying that they support the law based on the description that the poll provided.
The law’s climate-related provisions are overwhelmingly popular, including standards to ensure that investments go to American workers and American-made products. More than two-thirds of voters support every major climate-related provision tested in the poll, including:
- -Standards to ensure that businesses receiving government clean energy tax credits pay their workers a fair wage and make their goods in America (79% support, including 50% who support this provision “strongly”)
- -Grants to reduce air pollution at our nation’s ports and improve public health in surrounding communities (76% support, 43% strongly)
- -Ramping up production of American-made clean energy technologies to strengthen our energy supply chains and manufacturing industries (74% support, 44% strongly)
- -Providing up to $14,000 in rebates on home energy efficiency investments per household that save families money and help reduce reliance on fossil fuels (72% support, 40% strongly)
- -Penalties for oil and gas companies that are found to have pumped out excess methane gas pollution into the air (72% support, 45% strongly)
- -Investments to reduce pollution and improve public health in disadvantaged communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change (71% support, 40% strongly)
- -Tax credits for businesses that produce clean electricity, such as solar and wind power, electric vehicles, and other new clean energy technologies (69% support, 36% strongly)
Advocates have a strong case that workers and lower/middle class families stand to benefit most from the law. Majorities of voters believe that workers or jobseekers (64%) and middle and lower class Americans (62%) will benefit from the IRA after learning about the law’s major climate and health care provisions.
Additionally, voters believe that the IRA will have a positive net effect on a variety of industries – including manufacturing and tech as well as clean energy. Below are the percentages who believe that the IRA will cause various industries to either grow or shrink:
- -Clean energy – 64% grow / 9% shrink
- -Technology – 54% grow / 10% shrink
- -Health care – 48% grow / 15% shrink
- -Manufacturing – 46% grow / 22% shrink
- -Pharmaceuticals – 33% grow / 24% shrink
- -Fossil fuels – 21% grow / 45% shrink
Yale + GMU – Providing a better life for future generations is consistently voters’ top rationale for addressing global warming; preventing extreme weather has also become a more salient reason in recent years [Article]
Future generations remain the most compelling rationale for climate action. Yale and GMU find that nearly half of voters (47%) say that providing “a better life for our children and grandchildren” is one of the most important reasons to reduce global warming, more than any other rationale tested in their polling.
In Yale and GMU’s polls going back to 2017, providing a better life for future generations has consistently ranked as the top rationale for action among voters overall, among Democrats, and among Republicans.
These findings echo message testing results that the Potential Energy Coalition released earlier this year. The Potential Energy Coalition found that, across countries and audiences, a message focused on future generations consistently outperforms other narratives in lifting support for immediate action on climate change.
Extreme weather is rising as a rationale for climate action after several historic years of extreme heat and weather disasters. Yale and GMU find that “preventing extreme weather events” (37%) is now tied with “preventing the destruction of most life on the planet” (37%) as the next-most compelling rationale for climate action after “providing a better life for future generations.”
More than any other rationale tested in Yale and GMU’s polling, helping to prevent extreme weather has risen in salience over the past several years. Voters are nine points more likely to rate it among the top rationales for climate action now (37%) than they were in 2017 (28%), and it has increased as a rationale among both Democrats and Republicans over that period.
This shift validates the decision by many advocates to focus on extreme weather in their communications about climate change in recent years and to drive home the here-and-now consequences of the problem.
Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) – Solar continues to be voters’ favorite source of energy, with most saying that it’s good for the economy and costs; pro-solar arguments consistently win in head-to-head messaging tests against common criticisms about reliability, land use, and supply chains/China [Release, Deck]
Solar remains the most popular energy source for voters, with around three-quarters saying that they want their local utility to use more solar-generated electricity. Nearly three in four (74%) say that they want their electric utility to get more of its electricity from solar power. Most (65%) also want their electric utility to use more electricity from wind power, while less than half say that they want their utility to use more electricity from natural gas (42%), nuclear power (39%), or coal (26%).
Support for solar is bipartisan. Around seven in ten voters (72%) agree that the government should be doing more to encourage the use of solar power, including nearly nine in ten Democrats (88%) and around three-fifths of independents (60%) and Republicans (59%).
Positivity around solar is aided by perceptions that it’s clean, good for the economy, and can help save families money. Majorities agree with each of the following statements about solar power’s impact on the economy, climate, and environment:
- -Solar power is clean – 81% agree
- -Solar power is good for America’s economy – 75% agree
- -Increasing our use of solar power would save American families money – 74%
- -Solar panels are safe for the environment – 71% agree
- -Increasing our use of solar power would help address climate change – 71% agree
- -Solar power creates good-paying jobs – 66%
- -Solar power is driving economic investment in rural communities – 62%
- -Solar power is affordable – 55%
Solar advocates have very strong arguments against common critiques about reliability, land use, and supply chains/China. In head-to-head message tests, voters side far more with statements from supporters than opponents in these debates over solar power.
On reliability:
-74% agree more with supporters who say: “With new advances in energy storage, we can now produce solar power when it’s cheap and abundant, store it, and then put it back in the grid when it’s needed. That’s why solar has been so successful in other places that aren’t sunny all the time. And it’s one reason that solar has remained online during extreme weather and storms, even when traditional sources like coal and gas plants have failed.”
-26% agree more with opponents who say: “Electricity produced from gas and coal is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, allowing us to flip a switch and turn on our lights whenever we want, while clean energy sources like solar are limited by the right weather conditions or a sunny day. American families and businesses depend on reliable electricity. We can’t risk replacing proven energy sources with unproven solar technology.”
On land use:
-74% agree more with supporters who say: “With new solar panels, ranchers can continue grazing their livestock right alongside the panels, keeping much more land in use even as it’s also producing energy. Moreover, an acre of solar power produces 100 times more energy than an acre of corn grown for ethanol, so we can actually save more land for growing food by converting cropland growing corn for ethanol to solar farms.”
-26% agree more with opponents who say: “Building solar power on the scale needed would take up millions of square miles of land: productive farmland that would otherwise be used for harvesting crops or producing livestock. Expanding utility scale solar farms would take up too much space, take too much farmland out of production, leading to higher food prices, and collect too little energy.”
On supply chains:
-70% agree more with supporters who say: “Thanks to decades of lobbying by the Big Oil CEOs, America has fallen behind China when it comes to the technologies, like solar, that will power the 21st century. We need to change that by continuing to invest in American-made solar power and developing a robust domestic supply chain and manufacturing industry so that the future of energy is Made in the USA – not in communist China.”
-30% agree more with opponents who say: “Currently, the materials needed to create solar panels must be imported from other countries, making us dependent on the Chinese companies that dominate the renewable energy industry. American taxpayers shouldn’t be spending hundreds of billions of dollars to create incentives that only end up supporting Chinese manufacturing, while millions of jobs are killed here at home.”
Overwhelming majorities in every type of community are comfortable with solar projects in their areas. Polls consistently show that Americans are far more comfortable with clean energy projects in their areas than the conventional wisdom would suggest.
Here, the SEIA finds that more than four in five voters (84%) would support the construction of a utility-scale solar farm near their own community.
This includes large majorities of voters of every partisan affiliation, in every region of the country, and in every type of community (urban, suburban, or rural):
- -Democrats – 94%
- -Independents – 79%
- -Republicans – 74%
- -Northeast residents – 82%
- -Midwest residents – 80%
- -Southern residents – 86%
- -Western residents – 85%
- -Urban voters – 91%
- -Suburban voters – 81%
- -Rural voters – 81%
Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) + Data for Progress – Voters across party lines support legal action to hold the plastics and fossil fuel industries accountable for plastic pollution [Article, Crosstabs]
Voters drastically overestimate the percentage of plastic that gets recycled. Voters on average estimate that 43% of plastics in the United States are recycled, when in reality only about 5% are recycled in any given year.
Despite this rosy view of its recyclability, the public still has several strong concerns about plastic pollution – particularly for oceans and waterways. Even as they incorrectly believe that close to half of plastics are recycled, large majorities of voters are concerned about each of the following forms of plastic pollution:
- -Plastic waste in the ocean, rivers, and other waterways – 93% concerned, including 63% who are “very” concerned
- -Microplastics in the human body – 91% concerned, 46% “very” concerned
- -Plastic litter in your community – 84% concerned, 41% “very” concerned
- -Plastic waste in landfills – 83% concerned, 42% “very” concerned
Voters across party lines want to see legal action against the entities responsible for plastic pollution, including the plastics and fossil fuel industries. Respondents read the following information about potential legal action over plastic pollution: “Officials in some states have recently proposed taking legal action against the plastics and fossil fuel industries to hold them accountable for their role in plastic pollution. The officials cite evidence that the plastics and fossil fuel industries deceived the public about the viability of plastics recycling.”
After learning about the issue, voters support officials in their state taking similar legal action against the plastics and fossil fuel industries by an overwhelming 70%-22% margin. Support for this type of legal action spans partisan lines, with 88% of Democrats, 66% of independents, and 54% of Republicans in favor.
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