G WARMING OPINION OLLS AMERICANS ARE CLEAR NO ENERGY TAXESscienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/no_energy_taxes.pdf · 3 Democrat. Clearly, American’s did not

SPPI ORIGINAL PAPER ♦ August 28, 2012

GLOBAL WARMING OPINION

POLLS: AMERICANS ARE CLEAR—

NO ENERGY TAXES

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GLOBAL WARMING OPINION POLLS: AMERICANS ARE CLEAR — NO ENERGY TAXES

The public opinion of Americans, as captured by various polling organizations over the past few

years, can generally and concisely be summed up as:

The earth is warming

Human activities probably have something to do with this

(although the impacts are being exaggerated)

We have many more important concerns (jobs, economy, etc.) that we think Congress

and the President ought to focus on, and

Any action that is aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions should not cost us

much, if anything at all

(and direct taxes on gasoline or electricity are out).

The actual degree of public opinion of these points fluctuates a bit over time, based upon near-

term weather events, how much climate change, including climate change scandals (such as the

contents of the Climategate 1 and Climategate 2 email troves), is in the news, and other

external issues such as the economy.

But the general feeling has been pretty

much been in place for probably a

decade or more and has resulted in no

real legislation despite on-again-off-

again efforts in Congress to pass some

sort of law to reduce greenhouse gas

emissions from the U.S.—an indication that Americans really do not support such actions.

Further evidence of this comes from the 2010 election results in which Democrats in the House

of Representatives paid a price for their June, 2009 passage of the cap-and-trade bill that was

aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Every close race that they lost in those

elections evicted a member who had voted for the cap-and-trade program. In the Senate,

(which never voted on the cap-and-trade legislation) every close race went to an incumbent

How long the American public will

stand for politicians allowing the EPA

to essentially make laws is unclear.

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Democrat. Clearly, American’s did not look with favor upon their Representatives which

supported higher energy taxes.

For probably all of the reasons above, and despite President Obama’s comments in Rolling

Stone magazine last April that “I suspect that over the next six months, this (climate change) is

going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign, and I will be very clear in voicing

my belief that we're going to have to

take further steps to deal with climate

change in a serious way” climate

change has not received much

attention in this year’s campaign—and

probably will not do so during the

remainder of the election season.

But while the politicians do not want to

explicitly address the issue through

legislation, they nevertheless do so

implicitly by allowing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to continue to establish new

regulations aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions. While some of these regulations have

been struck down in court, others have survived legal challenges and are proceeding. How long

the American public will stand for politicians allowing the EPA to essentially make laws is

unclear, but actions are growing in Congress to try to strip the EPA of its authority to regulate

greenhouse gases. While several proposed actions have been unsuccessful to date, others are

still in the works. Republican presidential

candidate Mitt Romney has indicated his

effort to amend the Clean Air Act to

effectively repeal the court ruling that allows

the law to be used to regulate greenhouse

gas emissions.

So while some opinion polls—such as one

from March 2012 conducted jointly by researchers at Yale and George Mason Universities

(http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/Policy-Support-March-2012.pdf)—when taken on

their own, can seem to indicate widespread support for energy regulations, the broader set of

opinion polls tells a different story. Below are some highlights from a collection of recent polls

taken by a breadth of organizations aimed at ascertaining American’s viewpoints of the many

aspects of global warming and climate change—and how these opinions may have changed

over time.

Candidate Mitt Romney has indicated

his effort to amend the Clean Air Act to

effectively repeal the court ruling that

allows the law to be used to regulate

greenhouse gas emissions.

The largest group thinks that the

seriousness of global warming is

being exaggerated in the media.

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A March 2012 Gallup poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/153608/global-warming-views-steady-

despite-warm-winter.aspx) indicates that while a slight majority of Americans think that global

warming is currently underway, and a slight majority think that human activities are primarily to

blame, the largest group thinks that the seriousness of global warming is being exaggerated in

the media.

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According to a November 2011 opinion poll by the Pew Research Center (http://www.people-

press.org/2011/12/01/modest-rise-in-number-saying-there-is-solid-evidence-of-global-

warming/1/) investigating a similar topic, the percentage of Americans that think that there is

solid evidence that the earth is warming is 63% (down from 77% in 2007) with about 38%

(down from 47% in 2007) that think that the warming is because of human activity. About 65%

of the people polled thought that global warming was either a “somewhat” or “very serious”

problem (down from 79% having that opinion in 2007), while 33% thought that global warming

was either “not too serious” or “not a problem” (up from 20% in 2007).

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But, in spite of these opinions, “global

warming” has consistently ranked at or

near the bottom of a long list of concerns

or “priorities” that the American public

would prefer that the president and

Congress focus on. A January 2012 poll

conducted by the Pew Research Center

ranked the percentage of respondents

that considered 22 particular topics to be

a “top priority” for Congress. Global

warming came in dead last with only 25% of those polled considering it a top priority—down

13% over the past 5 years. While only one-quarter of the people ranked global warming as a

top priority, 86% considered “economy” and 82% considered “jobs” to be top priorities.

“Global warming” has consistently

ranked at or near the bottom of a long

list of concerns or “priorities” that the

American public would prefer that the

president and Congress focus on.

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Further support that Americans do not want a great deal of attention focused on global

warming policies comes from a poll conducted by Stanford University

(http://woods.stanford.edu/docs/ surveys/GW-Policy-Trend-2010-2012-1.pdf) in April 2012. In

that poll found a drop in the percentage of

people over the past two years that

endorsed policies intended to reduce future

global warming. The poll found that an

overwhelming number of respondents were

opposed to increasing taxes on gasoline or

electricity to try to reduce greenhouse gas

emissions, although a majority favored “tax

breaks” to industries trying to develop new

methods for reducing greenhouse gas

The poll found that an overwhelming

number of respondents were

opposed to increasing taxes on

gasoline or electricity to try to reduce

greenhouse gas emissions.

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emissions (e.g., improving automobile gas mileage, improving appliance efficiency, producing

electricity from renewables). Over the past two years, support has eroded for “tax breaks” and

opposition to higher gasoline and electricity taxes has increased.

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Together the results from these recent polls indicate a very tepid, half-hearted support for

actions aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions, preferring a nebulous “tax break” to

companies developing new technologies, but strongly opposing direct taxes (which are more

easily understood as making things cost more) on individual energy usage.

With these results in mind, the cap-and-

trade proposal are being replaced with

purportedly revenue neutral proposals in

which taxes on carbon are “offset” by

reductions in income taxes or other tax

rebates. The idea is that the total

amount of carbon tax collected each year

would be returned to Americans on an

equal share per capita basis, while the

amount of individual taxes paid would be

directly tied to how much carbon was individually used. If you cut back enough the amount of

refund you would receive would exceed the amount of taxes you paid—further encouraging

continued demand for efficiency and driving down emissions. However, critics of such a

program point out that once the government collects the taxes, there will be a growing

tendency for it to want to keep the taxes—with the net result of rising energy costs and the

declines in productivity, etc. that would accompany them. Not to mention a lot of other details

The cap-and-trade proposal are being

replaced with purportedly revenue

neutral proposals in which taxes on

carbon are “offset” by reductions in

income taxes or other tax rebates.

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which would require being worked out and sold to the American public—a public which, as the

poll results clearly indicate, has much more urgent matters on their minds that they want the

Congress and the president to attend to. In these hard economic times, it seems that most

Americans would take a dim view of Congress or the president spending too much effort in

focusing on global warming and some new tax and rebate plan, when their minds are on jobs,

debt and entitlements. Given that it is widely known (even by government officials) that

domestic greenhouse gas emissions reductions produce no detectable impacts on local,

regional, or global climate, any money at all spent pursuing such reductions is money taken

away from more pressing issues.

As a consequence—barring some sort of catastrophic weather event (even though such events

cannot be scientifically linked to anthropogenic climate change)—global warming will almost

surely not be raised as a major issue in the 2012 presidential and congressional campaigns.

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Cover art provided by Microsoft.