Politics & Global Warming, December 2020

• Large majorities of registered voters – often across party lines – support energy and energy efficiency policies that reduce carbon pollution and promote clean energy including tax incentives or rebates to homeowners, landlords, and businesses to make existing buildings more energy efficient (88%); setting stronger energy efficiency standards for new buildings (86%); tax rebates to people who purchase energy-efficient vehicles or solar panels (82%); funding more research into renewable energy sources (82%); support generating renewable energy (solar and wind) on public land in the U.S. (80%); and providing federal funding to put solar panels on the roofs of public schools (78%).

• Large majorities of registered voters also support conservation and restoration policies that reduce carbon pollution and promote clean energy, including federal funding to help farmers improve farming practices to protect and restore the soil so it absorbs and stores more carbon (86%); re-establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps, which would employ workers to protect natural ecosystems, plant trees in rural and urban areas, and restore the soil on farmlands (85%); and creating a jobs program that would hire unemployed coal workers to safely close down old coal mines and restore the natural landscape and hire unemployed oil and gas workers to safely close down thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells, which are a source of water and methane pollution (83%).

• Across political lines, registered voters' highest priorities for infrastructure improvements are roads/bridges and water systems, followed by the electricity grid, including: investments to repair and improve the nation’s roads, bridges, and highways (93%);  investments to repair and improve public water supply systems (90%); investments to modernize and upgrade the nation’s electricity grid (84%); and funds to repair and improve National Parks (74%).