New Poll Shows WI Voters Support EPA and Stronger Smog Standards
(June 16, 2011)—
Americans across the country are overwhelmingly supportive of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the agency’s efforts to update standards for life-threatening air pollutants such as smog, according to new data released today from a nationwide, bipartisan survey conducted by the American Lung Association.
Central to the current debate in Congress, 75 percent of voters support the EPA setting stricter limits on smog, and a significant majority of voters reject the notion that stronger standards will impede economic recovery, with most believing that updated standards are likely to create more jobs as a result of innovation and investment in new technologies.
Despite months of continued attacks on clean air protections from Members of Congress, in today’s results, 72 percent of national voters do not want Congress to stop the EPA from setting stricter limits on smog. This is an increase from a similar Lung Association survey conducted in February 2011, in which 68 percent of voters opposed Congressional action that would impede EPA from updating clean air standards.
Key poll findings include:
- An overwhelming 75 percent of voters support EPA setting stricter limits on smog;
- 67 percent of Wisconsin voters say that stricter standards on air pollution will not damage our economic recovery, with 53 percent believing that updates will likely create more jobs, not less;
- 66 percent of voters think the EPA should set pollution standards, not Members of Congress;
- In Wisconsin, support for the EPA setting stricter limits on smog was at 73 percent..
Despite the fact that certain big polluters continue to make an economic argument that stronger standards will lead to plant closures or other extreme measures, 65 percent of voters clearly reject the premise that stricter smog standards will hurt the economy or cost jobs.
The full survey, along with slides and a memo from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Moore Information found here.
