In his WaPo column, The Plum Line, Greg Sargent shows that support for greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations crosses the often impermeable partisan boundary between red states and blue (Republican vs. Democrat) in the United States. Sargent’s analysis of the Washington Post-ABC poll (see previous story) shows that 69% of Americans see global warming as a serious problem, including 70% in states carried by Barack Obama in 2012 and 67% in states carried by Mitt Romney. Support for federal regulation of power plant emissions stood at 72% in blue states and 68% in red; for mandatory state limits on emissions, 73% in blue states and 65% in red. Across the board, at least six in 10 Americans—64% in blue states, 60% in red—would willingly pay an extra $20 per month on their electricity bills as a result of GHG regulation. “On every one of the above questions, in red states, large percentages of independents and moderates favour action,” Sargent writes. “More broadly, as you can see, those just aren’t meaningful differences between red and blue states on these questions.”
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