Based on a description provided to voters, 77 percent of those polled support their state’s participation in the RGGI program, with Massachusetts and Maryland exhibiting the highest levels of support with 84 percent and 79 percent, respectively. Additionally, when asked if they support strengthening carbon pollution limits from power plants to five percent annually throughout the region, nearly 8 in 10 voters approved, with Maryland and Massachusetts residents once again showing the most support for the change. Nearly 2 in 3 Republicans and 7 in 10 Independents supported such action from their state officials, with 9 in 10 Democratic voters also supporting the change.
“Based on these results it’s clear that Maryland voters, on both sides of the aisle, support strong climate action and support RGGI,” Maryland Senator Pinsky said. “Marylanders value air quality and personal health, and they want to see stronger carbon pollution limits from power plants. The Maryland General Assembly has, and will continue its unfaltering support for climate action and the RGGI program. We put our state into RGGI through the Healthy Air Act in 2006 and we just set a new course of direction under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act in 2016. The state of Maryland is ready to stand up for a strong RGGI program that its people clearly want and support.”
Additionally, the survey finds that 76 percent of voters believe that climate change is a serious problem. More than half of Republicans and over three-quarters of Independents in the region agree with this consensus as well as almost 9 in 10 Democrats, showing that voters across the partisan spectrum in the RGGI states take climate change very seriously. Massachusetts, where more than 4 in 5 voters say climate change is a serious threat, is one of the many states that has already begun to see the effects of climate change and is actively working to mitigate it. Almost three-fourths of those polled across the region believe strengthened limits on carbon pollution through RGGI would help address climate change and improve environmental quality. Moreover, results show that 8 in 10 believe reducing carbon pollution by 5 percent annually would have a positive effect on air quality and people’s health.
“The fascinating thing about these survey results is how they cross partisan lines,” said Jay Campbell, senior vice president of Hart Research Associates. “In a political environment where Democrats and Republicans take opposite sides of every issue almost as a matter of course, it is unusual and gratifying to see an important issue where majorities of partisans on both sides—as well as independents—are on the same side.”
For the past ten years, the RGGI states have worked together to set and achieve increasingly aggressive carbon pollution reductions from power plants, while generating billions of dollars in savings for customers and thousands of new jobs for workers through energy efficiency and clean energy investment in communities throughout the region. Analysis by Synapse Energy Economics shows that a five percent carbon pollution reduction from power plants annually by 2030, along with other actions to reduce climate-disrupting pollution from the transportation and heating sectors, would generate nearly 60,000 jobs on average each year.
The poll shows overwhelming support from voters regionally for the RGGI program and strong backing for continuing carbon pollution reductions of five percent annually from 2020 through 2030. This reduction would create thousands of jobs in the region and provide clean air for all while helping each state meet their climate goals.
*The survey’s margin of error is +/- 3.9% for the full regional data and is +/- 6.9% in individual states. Margins of error are higher for subgroups of the sample.
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