Renewable energy policy design and framing influence public support in the United States
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eScholarship UC item 6n95x618.pdf
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209.54 KB
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Adobe PDF
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a6979e67938f351385a8a32969b09b03
Author(s)
Stokes, Leah C.
Warshaw, Christopher
Journal
Nature Energy
Publisher
Springer Nature
Citation
Stokes, L., Warshaw, C. Renewable energy policy design and framing influence public support in the United States. Nat Energy 2, 17107 (2017).
Version
Author's final manuscript
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.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2017.107
