Poll: Majority of Americans oppose Trump’s climate policies

According to a new POLITICO/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll, 60 percent of the American public as a whole oppose President Trump’s recently proposed 31 percent cut in funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, constituents of the two major political parties are very far apart on this issue. Among Democrats, 81 percent oppose these cuts, while nearly seven in ten Republicans (68 percent) support them.

Similarly, a 62 percent majority of the public as a whole supports the United States remaining in the Paris Climate Treaty, despite President Trump’s suggestions that participating in the treaty would harm U.S. jobs. Once more, there are significant partisan divides: 87 percent of Democrats support continued participation in the Paris agreement, while 56 percent of Republicans would prefer to withdraw from the treaty. Among Independents, 61 percent support staying in the treaty.

Additionally, though President Trump and Republican leaders have argued that EPA regulation harms U.S. jobs, a majority of the public as a whole – including a majority of Republicans – disagree. Only 21 percent of all Americans and 31 percent of Republicans think government regulation designed to address climate change costs U.S. jobs.

Dr. Robert Blendon, who co-directed the poll, said: “This suggests that Republican support for cutting the EPA’s budget is not based on the specific idea that environmental regulation costs U.S. jobs, but likely on a more general distaste for government regulation overall.”

View the complete poll findings.

These polls are part of an ongoing series of surveys developed by researchers at the Harvard Opinion Research Program (HORP) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School in partnership with POLITICO.