Climate change is an awkward issue for Republicans because it has been dismissed by their leader, President Donald Trump, whose donors in the oil and gas industry are eager to head off new government regulation.
At the same time, a poll of 1,000 18- to 35-year-old voters by the American Conservation Coalition found that 77% of right-leaning respondents said climate change was important to them, a number that increased to 90% among independent voters.
“From our perspective the climate crisis is huge and its going to need Democrats and Republicans alike working toward solving it,” said Sandra Purohit, director of federal advocacy for E2, a group of environmental business leaders that is partnering with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We see these as building blocks, its not the whole solution but its the direction we start moving in if we need to start addressing climate.”
The Republican plan also got pushback from conservatives.
The conservative Club for Growth slammed the plan as an example of “liberal environmental policies” illustrating how the politics of climate change remains tricky for the GOP.
“Besides hurting our economy, these measures will not make a single environmentalist vote for a Republican and only alienate conservatives across the country,” the group’s president, David McIntosh, said in statement.
--With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.