Mixed emotions in the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll may help pinpoint the challenge confronting environmentalists looking to build a coalition behind one of their top priorities.
This week’s survey tested attitudes on two hot-button issues: construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and President Obama’s proposal to regulate carbon emissions from power plants linked to global climate change. Environmentalists fiercely oppose the first and just as staunchly support the second; for most of the fossil-fuel industry, the priorities are reversed.
But in the survey, only about half of adults who took a position on both issues consistently lined up with one side or the other. [cont.]
Ron Brownstein, National Journal