Why is Climate Change a Partisan Issue in the U.S.?
Joe Manchin as a case study
One of the most puzzling things to me is how partisan the issue of climate change has become in the US, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence showing that climate change is real and scientists pleading that urgent action is needed to avoid catastrophic consequences due to climate change.
Given my brief research, I argue that the primary reason for the growing partisan divide between the Democrats and Republicans regarding climate change is money in politics, specifically the campaign contributions of the energy industry to key political actors, who block climate legislation in the congress and influence their electorate by positing climate change action as a tradeoff against “jobs”. For Republican politicians, many of whom represent states which are more severely impacted by climate legislation as their states are home to Oil and Gas companies, coal mining companies and other energy companies, posing climate legislation in opposition to jobs or employment, also aligns with the economic incentives of the voters in these states. This is not only true for many Republican politicians, but also few Democratic politicians, most notably Joe Manchin III representing West Virginia in the Senate. Later in this post, I will specifically look into what motives Joe Manchin may have in blocking climate legislation.
The Yale 2021 Public Opinion Estimate shows that most Americans (72%) believe that global warming is happening, 57% believe global warming is caused mostly by human activities, 61% said Congress should do more to address global warming, and 68% supported a carbon tax on fossil fuel companies.
However, there is a huge partisan divide in public opinion, and it is widening over time. In a 2020 Pew research poll, 88% of Democrats and 31% of Republican voters said that climate change is a major threat to US.
Climate change was not always a partisan issue. In his Presidential campaign speech, President George HW Bush said “I am an environmentalist” and argued for new legislation to curb carbon emissions (Aug 31, 1988). Even as recently as in 2008, in his Presidential election Ad, then Senator John McCain (Republican) said: “I believe climate change is real. It is not just a greenhouse gas issue. It’s a national security issue. We have an obligation to future generations to take action and fix it.”
McCright and Dunlap (2011) argue that climate change became a partisan issue in the early 2000s, when Democrats prioritized environment as a policy issue, whereas Republicans led by then President George W Bush aggressively promoted fossil fuel companies and deregulated the industry. By the late 2000s, the remainder of moderate Republicans who cared about environment were pushed to doubt climate science. This transformation of the party was only exacerbated by the rise of the Tea Party after the election of President Obama, and after the Citizen’s United vs FEC ruling allowing more money in politics. After the 2010 midterm elections, Republican majority decided to scrap the select committee on global warming in congress. In 2016, once President Trump got elected, vast majority of Republicans publicly doubted the science of climate change and President Trump pulled US out of the Paris climate accord and declared: “War on coal is over”. The Senate majority leader, the speaker of the House and every member of the elected Republican leadership were united in their praise of Trump. The partisan divide has only increased since then.
Case Study: Joe Manchin III
In the US political system, any legislation has to first be proposed and passed in the congress before it comes to the President. Hence, for climate legislation, congressional support is the critical factor. Moreover, a proposed bill first goes to the relevant committee, and the committee decides if and in what form the bill should be presented in the Senate or House of Representatives. If it is presented, all senators or representatives vote, and if passed, it moves for approval to the other chamber (sente/house of representatives). For this post, I specifically focus on the Senate, given the tenuous majority Democrats hold in the Senate. Currently, 50 Democratic senators and 50 Republican senators are elected in the senate. This means, if each senator votes along party lines, the tie-breaker vote will be cast by the Vice-president Kamala Harris for a legislation to pass the senate. The Senate leaders set the agenda and hence, hold important power. Among the Democratic senators, Joe Manchin holds an important vote as he is the most right leaning democrat.
Hence, arguably one of the most important people whose support is needed to pass any climate legislation in the current Senate is Joe Manchin (Democratic Senator from West Virginia). Moreover, Joe Manchin chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources panel, which means even before a climate change related bill is presented to the congress, he has a critical role in shaping/amending the bill and deciding whether the bill even should be presented or not.
What motivates Joe Manchin to vote in a certain way in matters of legislation? It is impossible to know for sure, but we can make an educated guess. Like any politician, he wants to maximize his chances to stay in power (remain popular among his constituents) and get re-elected. This means that getting funding for elections and taking actions popular within the political base in West Virginia are the most important motives for Joe Manchin.
Money matters because the Congressional candidate who spends the most money is more likely to win the election (caveat: although money matters, the causality isn’t entirely clear. For example, more funding can go to the candidates who are already popular and most likely to win.)
Let’s specifically look at Joe Manchin’s campaign finance data. According to the campaign finance data reported for the period 2017–2022, Joe Manchin was the top recipient from the following industries: Coal mining (#1), Natural Gas transmission & distribution (#1), Oil & Gas (#1), Tobacco (#1), and Mining (#2) (source).
Moreover, the top asset (2018) reported in the investment portfolio for Senator Joe Manchin is “Enersystems Inc” worth over $3,000,000 (source). Enersystems Inc. is a coal brokerage that he helped run before his political career (source).
At a party level, the vast majority of the money from the Oil & Gas industry goes to the Republican party.
However, among the top three recipients of Energy industry’s money, two are democratic senators: Joe Manchin and Charles Schumer.
Perhaps this is surprising to you. Perhaps it is not so surprising that a Democratic senator, who holds a critical vote to pass any climate change related legislation, is a top recipient of funding from the energy industry. Regardless, it is simply scary, how much power is rested on this one person, for any climate legislation to pass the Senate.
I will end with some words of hope. Although 88% of electricity in West Virginia comes from coal and many people in the state have employment in the coal or other energy industries, 45% of people think that the congress should do more to address climate change. Renewable energy has also just begun to gain a foothold in West Virginia, accounting for 6 percent of the state’s electricity in 2020. In order to change Joe Manchin’s opinion and get wider bipartisan support for climate legislation, politicians and policymakers need to address the economic fears of the people who are employed by the fossil fuel industries. By encouraging businesses to transition to cleaner energy and incentivizing renewable energy industry to employ people who previously worked in the fossil fuel industry, the supposed trade-off between jobs and climate action can also be tackled.
