TODAY’S STUDY: AN ELECTION YEAR VALENTINE TO NEW ENERGY

Running Clean; How to win on clean energy issues
Heather Taylor-Miesle, July 2011 (NRDC Action Fund)

Promoting clean energy can help candidates win elections by providing positive solutions around some of the biggest concerns for voters—jobs and the economy, their security, and the health of their families. Running Clean shows how candidates have successfully connected with the public by linking their support for clean energy to real results, and lays out how other candidates can do the same in the future.

Despite the economic recession, clean energy is one of the few sectors generating jobs and enjoying growth. The American wind industry alone already has more than 400 manufacturing plants and directly employs 75,000 people.1 Solar power is one of the fastest growing sectors of the U.S. economy and already employs more than 100,000 people (that’s more than the coal industry).2,3 Fully exploiting America’s potential for cost-effective increases in energy efficiency would create more than 900,000 jobs and lower the country’s energy bill by $700 billion…

click to enlarge

Running Clean

In addition, while oil companies charge record prices at the gas pump, cleaner cars offer voters a way to keep more money in their pockets. In fact, the building of fuel-efficient cars has powered Detroit’s comeback and prompted more than 20 electric vehicle component factories to open or expand in the Midwest in the past two years alone…

Dirty energy releases dangerous pollutants—smog, soot, carbon, and toxic compounds—that threaten public health by causing respiratory illnesses, heart disease, cancer, and premature death. Parents of the seven million American children who suffer from asthma welcome the chance to clean up the air.6 So do other groups, such as medical professionals who treat impacted individuals, and low-income communities who suffer a disproportionate burden from air pollution.7 Expanding our reliance on clean energy protects public health.

Solutions to these challenges exist right now. Clean energy is building a new economy based on the spirit of American innovation. It will create new job opportunities, reduce our dependence on oil, and protect us from pollution that threatens our health and contributes to climate change. Voters understand this—and they are supporting elected officials who share that vision. Clean energy is a win-win issue for candidates; in addition to being good public policy, it is good politics.

click to enlarge

Clean Energy Has Broad Appeal

Extensive polling confirms that clean energy and its benefits have broad appeal across the political spectrum. Indeed, it often unites people who are otherwise divided. According to a May 2011 poll by the Yale Project on Climate Communication,8 91 percent of Americans say developing sources of clean energy should be a priority for the President and Congress, including 85 percent of Republicans, 89 percent of independents, and 97 percent of Democrats. In June 2011, Stanford University released a report in which 86 percent of participants said they wanted the federal government to limit the air pollution that businesses emit, and 76 percent favored government restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from businesses…

Voters respond well to clean energy for a number of different reasons. Polling numbers prove it. The March 2011 Gallup Environment poll found that 66 percent of Americans considered “development of alternative energy such as wind and solar power” as the preferred approach for addressing energy concerns (only 26 percent chose “production of more oil, gas, and coal supplies”)…

In another Gallup poll in February 2011, when asked what action they would like Congress to take in the year ahead, 83 percent of respondents favored an energy bill that provides incentives for using alternative energy (beating out the 76 percent who supported an overhaul of the federal tax code and the 72 percent who supported a more rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan)…

click to enlarge

Clean energy attracts broad support, in part, because voters see it working in their own states—at least 37 states already require utilities to meet a certain percentage of electricity from renewable energy.12 For example, Iowa now gets nearly 20 percent of its energy from wind power, and the supply chain for the industry supports 2,300 local jobs and involves more than 80 Iowa businesses.13 California’s renewable energy requirement was so successful that a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers agreed to raise it to 33 percent.14 Texas’s requirement, meanwhile, has enabled it to produce more wind power than all but five countries in the world…

Similarly, the vast majority of Americans—across political parties—support protecting public health from air pollution. For example, 78 percent of Americans believe the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “should protect the air we breathe and the water we drink with safeguards that hold corporate polluters accountable for the pollution they release into our environment,” including 87 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of Republicans, and 74 percent of independents…

click to enlarge

The American public clearly understands that clean energy provides greater opportunities than dirty fuels such as oil and coal…If candidates harness this support correctly, it can translate to votes in the ballot booth.

But this public support has to be earned. Candidates need to talk about the issues persuasively and often — otherwise clean energy does not become a priority issue or the campaign asset that it could potentially be, and, in fact, can become a drawback if an opponent is allowed to spread mistruths. A successful candidate is able to weave the clean energy narrative around the economy and need for innovation, which is front of mind for many American voters. This will be the case in 2012, just as it has been in 2010, 2008, and 2006.17,18 Fortunately, past elections give us a number of good examples of how this can work, and help establish a number of best practices for future candidates.

click to enlarge

The Role of Clean Energy in the 2010 Elections

From California to Virginia, state polling during the run-up to the 2010 election found widespread support for clean energy: An NRDC Action Fund battleground poll (conducted from October 11th through 12th, 2010, in 23 toss-up Congressional Districts across the country) found that, on average, voters were almost 20 percentage points more likely to vote for someone who supports clean energy legislation…

Even in the more traditional manufacturing centers of the Midwest and South, voters supported clean energy and were more likely to support candidates who shared their belief. And even in conservative districts, voters supported renewable energy by double digits over coal and nuclear power. In fact, this remained consistent even in districts where coal mining is prominent.

In a 2010 election-night poll, by a coalition of environmental and labor organizations, Democrats, independents, and Republicans showed that they wanted Congress to prioritize investments in clean energy…Independents, however, expressed the strongest support, as shown in the figure below.

Some pundits incorrectly argued that the House vote on the 2009 American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) played a pivotal role in the 2010 election, a premise that is refuted by very solid data in a report, by Seth Masket of the University of Denver and Steven Greene of North Carolina State, that examined the effect of four key roll call votes (i.e., health care reform, the stimulus, ACES, and the financial bailout) on election outcomes.21 The report concluded that the ACES vote did not negatively impact incumbents who voted for it and that other issues played a prominent role in deciding the election’s outcomes. In fact, a review of the election results shows that those candidates who voted in support of clean energy did better than those who did not…Indeed, a majority of voters (almost 53 percent on average) in tight races around the country said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports a clean energy bill, according to polling done for the NRDC Action Fund in the fall of 2010.19 When the same poll presented the opposition’s main opposition talking point (that the bill was akin to a job-killing energy tax), voters rejected this idea by more than 18 percentage points in favor of a bill that creates new jobs, reduces our use of foreign oil, and holds corporate
polluters accountable.

Clearly, effectively communicating with local communities about the potential of clean energy provides a deep well of support for candidates—and a useful way to differentiate oneself from one’s opponents. Voters seem receptive to the issue if the candidate is willing to make it a positive focus and to effectively communicate its many benefits.

click to enlarge

How to Talk about Clean Energy…Know Your Audience…Clean Energy Is Often the Best Way to Tell a Positive Story about the Economy…How to Win With Clean Energy…Conduct Meaningful Research and Be Specific…Develop a Winning Clean Energy Narrative…Communicate What Is at Stake: National Security, American Leadership, and Jobs…Talk about Health…Tie Opponents to Their Donations from Dirty Industries…Understand that People Want Clean Energy…

Clean energy represents an incredible opportunity for candidates and the communities they hope to represent. Across the country, candidates have successfully used it in their campaigns, and have won.

Clean energy represents the best of American values, such as innovation and entrepreneurship. Candidates will be successful when they take this message forward, whether celebrating a new battery research facility in Ohio, watching a new wind turbine turn powerfully against a Texan sky, and standing with the entrepreneurs and workers who make it happen, and the families who breathe cleaner air as a result.