I read Pew. When I read no other polling I still read Pew, they have all kinds of interesting insight into American society and they are a very good polster. I wish though that they'd dug down a little into the "why" as well as the "what". Without fanfare here it is.
Continued Support for XL Pipeline
The support for building the XL pipeline is broad based and exists by substantial margins in all demographics except one, liberal Dems, but even there the split is 4/5, almost half of liberal Dems support building the XL pipeline. That's something to consider. Last year I made a similar post to this one and the liberal Dem split was more like 3/5. I should say overall the sentiment has trended the other way, slightly more anti.
I've no idea why, all I or anyone can do is speculate. Do they think it will bring prices down? Want to buy oil from other than the middle east? Not convinced about it's environmental effect?
In other energy related polling some things look brighter, including broad based support for conservation, efficiency, alternative sources, more anti fracking, and so on.
My thoughts? I'm agnostic. If we didn't need to import any oil to burn it would be much better, better for our economy and probably better for our environment too. The carbon footprint, which is my main concern,,, some say tomato, some say tomahto. I have no sources that I really trust. When I google I get either petro trade groups or those folks who use misinformation to promote anti hunting sentiment, no love lost from me over there either.
One thing I do know, it's a year later from when I wrote a similar post, and though sentiment has shifted on fracking it hasn't budged much on XL. Maybe we need to say it a different way.