Democrats use climate change as wedge issue on Republicans

File-This Feb. 19, 2014, file photo shows the coal-fired Sherburne County (Sherco) Generating Plant, in Becker, Minn. Minnesota, which already successfully lowered carbon emissions and capitalized on renewable energy sources, must cut carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 41 percent over the next 15 years as part of a sweeping plan President Barack Obama announced Monday to reduce pollution from power plants. (AP Photo/St. Cloud Times, Jason Wachter, File) less File-This Feb. 19, 2014, file photo shows the coal-fired Sherburne County (Sherco) Generating Plant, in Becker, Minn. Minnesota, which already successfully lowered carbon emissions and capitalized on renewable ... more Photo: Jason Wachter, Associated Press Photo: Jason Wachter, Associated Press Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Democrats use climate change as wedge issue on Republicans 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

(06-23) 08:59 PDT WASHINGTON -- When President Obama stood before students in Southern California a week ago ridiculing those who deny climate science, he wasn't just road testing a new political strategy to a friendly audience. He was trying to drive a wedge between younger voters and the Republican Party.

Democrats are convinced that climate change is the new same-sex marriage, an issue that is moving irreversibly in their favor, especially among young people, women and independents, the voters who hold the keys to the White House in 2016.

Wedge issues are those in which one side believes strongly that it has the moral high ground. Just as Republicans held the upper hand on same-sex marriage in 2004, Democrats now see climate change as a way to drive their base voters to the polls while branding Republicans as antiscience and beholden to special interests.

It's not just their own polling telling Democrats that. Stanford political scientist Jon Krosnick found in a new survey that an overwhelming majority of Americans believe climate change is happening and that humans are to blame.

"If I were a campaign consultant, which I'm not," Krosnick said, "it's a no-brainer to advise that if a candidate is comfortable being on the green side of this issue, this is something to trumpet, because it will win more votes than it will lose."

Pushing EPA rule

Polls show large majorities of Americans favoring action on climate change, even if it causes electricity prices to rise. That's one reason Obama has moved ahead forcefully on a rule proposed this month by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit carbon dioxide pollution from the nation's power plants, the biggest step against climate change yet taken by any administration.

It would seem to be a risky bet in a midterm election year in which Democrats' control of the Senate rests on races in a handful of fossil-fuel-dependent states such as Louisiana, Alaska and West Virginia. Republicans clearly think so.

"Much of the Republicans' ability to capture the Senate goes through energy-producing states," said Republican analyst Ford O'Connell. He believes Obama is less worried about Senate Democrats than he is about burnishing his legacy.

After the rule was announced, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans, ran robocalls in four states dependent on coal-fired electricity, saying the rule would raise energy costs.

GOP attack

Committee spokeswoman Brook Hougesen said the Democrats' "war on coal" is just the beginning, and will soon spread to oil and "cripple entire industries and destroy jobs."

"People need to drive their car, they enjoy watching television, using the iPhones and iPads, sending e-mails and using Facebook," Hougesen said. "They want their energy costs lowered, not raised."

On Thursday, Senate Republicans blocked a must-pass Senate energy appropriations bill by demanding a provision to kill funding for the EPA rule. The move could force a partial government shutdown this fall, if it means Congress is unable to pass the spending bill.

But rather than shy away from the fight, Democrats and their allies are waging a vigorous counterattack.

"The climate deniers in the GOP are beginning to sound like the Flat Earth Society, and what will help them in GOP primaries and gerrymandered districts is going to kill them with swing voters in national elections," said Brad Woodhouse, president of the liberal Americans United for Change.

Chris Lehane is the top political strategist for former Silicon Valley hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer's NextGen Climate Action, a political action committee planning to spend $100 million in state and local races. He's promising to use climate change as a wedge issue.

It "plays into what I call the Republican troglodyte brand," Lehane said - "anti-immigrant, antiwomen, antiscience."

Lehane said the climate fight will help motivate Democratic voters who care deeply about the issue to go to the polls in an off-year election. He said it also helps Democrats highlight the role of fossil-fuel industry money in GOP campaigns.

One worrisome trend for Republicans is that many U.S. corporations now see climate change as an economic problem that has the potential to disrupt their supply chains.

The Business Roundtable, a group of chief executives of large U.S. companies, has issued numerous reports urging emissions reductions. The group's vice chairman, Honeywell CEO Dave Cote, said this month that its members looked forward to working with the Obama administration on the new EPA rule.

2010 fiasco

Not all business is on board, however. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which includes smaller businesses as well as Fortune 500 companies, issued a study before the new rule was announced saying it would cost the economy $50 billion a year.

In believing they can make political capital on global warming, Democrats don't have history on their side. The last election in which climate change was an issue was in 2010, and it was a disaster for the party.

House passage of cap-and-trade legislation to curb carbon pollution that year helped topple San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi from the speakership and embarrassed California Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who failed to get the Senate to act. The party descended into near-total silence on the issue.

Democratic pollsters now are urging the party's candidates to speak out loudly, however, arguing that key voting blocs are more receptive than they were four years ago.

Among young voters, "Republicans are losing touch on issues that include both marriage equality and climate science," said Geoff Garin, president of Hart Research Associates. "Young people look at politicians and they say, 'Do they think the world spins backward or do they think the world spins forward?' And the Republican position on climate change is another thing that says the Republicans are a party that thinks the world spins backward."

Talking-point shift

Such polls could help explain a subtle shift in Republican talking points on climate. Rather than denying climate change outright, top GOP politicians have begun qualifying their critiques by saying they lack personal scientific expertise, and instead are emphasizing the cost of action.

"You'll hear this subtle shift, which is it's economics they worry about, it's not the science - which is a pretty big difference," said former Rep. Bob Inglis, a South Carolina Republican who lost his seat in a 2010 primary election after he endorsed taking steps to fight climate change.

Inglis pointed to the backlash that greeted Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican with presidential ambitions, when he said last month that he did not believe human activity was causing the Earth to warm.

"There was an awareness that that wasn't working too well," Inglis said. "Your constituents are standing ankle-deep in water. ... You do have an obligation to these constituents."

To be sure, Democrats running in coal states such as Kentucky and West Virginia are fleeing the EPA rule. But the polling by Stanford's Krosnick shows why Democrats nationally are plunging ahead.

His survey, conducted from June 4 to June 8, was sponsored by Resources for the Future, a centrist energy think tank, and released June 13 after the EPA rule was announced. It found that 73 percent of the 1,023 people polled believe temperatures have been rising and 78 percent believe human activity is a cause. Only 27 percent believed taking action would harm the economy. Its margin of error was 3.6 percentage points.

The survey did not separate the results by party affiliation, but Krosnick said other polls have shown a majority of Republicans, about 55 percent, believe climate change is happening, while about 95 percent of Democrats do.

One-sided passion

On most issues that strongly motivate a minority of voters - such as gun control, abortion, and, a decade ago, same-sex marriage - passionate voters are divided roughly 50-50 between pro and con, Krosnick said. But voters passionate about climate change almost universally believe it is occurring.

The 18 percent or so of voters passionate about climate change "are overwhelmingly on the green side of the issue," Krosnick said. That means Democrats "gain many more votes than they lose."

Once the midterms are over and the presidential contest gets under way, Krosnick thinks Republicans will be playing defense.

"If the Republican Party chooses to say, number one, we're not sure climate change is really happening, or number two, it may be happening, but we don't know if it's caused by humans or not, or number three, the one thing we know for sure is that the economy is not thriving and this is not the time to take action on this issue, Americans don't resonate with any of that," Krosnick said. "Large majorities of Americans are on the opposite side of those views."