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Renewable energy policy design and framing influence public support in the United States

Nature Energy volume 2, Article number: 17107 (2017) Cite this article

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Abstract

The United States has often led the world in supporting renewable energy technologies at both the state and federal level. However, since 2011 several states have weakened their renewable energy policies. Public opinion will probably be crucial for determining whether states expand or contract their renewable energy policies in the future. Here we show that a majority of the public in most states supports renewable portfolio standards, which require a portion of the electricity mix to come from renewables. However, policy design and framing can strongly influence public support. Using a survey experiment, we show that effects of renewable portfolio standards bills on residential electricity costs, jobs and pollution, as well as bipartisan elite support, are all important drivers of public support. In many states, these bills’ design and framing can push public opinion above or below majority support.

The United States has one of the highest per capita carbon emissions in the world1,2,3. Despite global progress, political barriers still hamper attempts to transition the electricity system away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy technologies in the US and globally4,5. In most public opinion polls in the US, public support for climate policy is lower than for renewable energy policies, although these differences vary over time6,7. For this reason, renewable energy policies may be one way to secure climate benefits while maintaining public support for action.

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Figure 1: Support for renewable energy portfolio policies in each state.
Figure 2: The effects of each treatment on respondents’ support for a renewable portfolio standard in the respondent’s state.
Figure 3: The effects of each treatment on Democratic and Republican respondents’ support for a renewable portfolio standard in the respondent’s state.

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Acknowledgements

Funding for this research was provided by the MIT Energy Initiative. Thank you to D. Konisky and A. Berinsky, participants at UCSB PEPP, Columbia University LSS and APPAM 2014 for feedback on this research. We also appreciate logistical support from the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab (PERL).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

    Leah C. Stokes

  2. Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    Christopher Warshaw

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  1. Leah C. Stokes
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  2. Christopher Warshaw
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Contributions

The authors contributed equally on all aspects of this article. C.W. was the principle investigator on the grant from the MIT Energy Initiative that funded this research, and managed the survey experiment with Survey Sampling International (SSI).

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Correspondence to Christopher Warshaw.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Notes 1–2, Supplementary Tables 1–7 and Supplementary References. (PDF 234 kb)

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Stokes, L., Warshaw, C. Renewable energy policy design and framing influence public support in the United States. Nat Energy 2, 17107 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2017.107

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