Over the last decade, energy policy has risen to a level of prominence among the American public not observed since the 1970s. The confluence of energy-related environmental threats, emerging energy technologies, and an aging energy infrastructure has propelled energy issues to a higher profile than at any time since the energy crisis during the Ford and Carter administrations. As energy issues have reached higher levels of prominence in the United States in recent years, the policy preferences of Americans regarding energy have taken on an elevated level of importance. What do Americans want by way of energy policy and what drives those preferences? Stephen Ansolabehere and David Konisky masterfully respond to these questions in Cheap and Clean. In this data-packed examination of contemporary American opinion regarding energy issues, Ansolabehere and Konisky develop a succinct analysis of what Americans want in terms of their energy sources and the factors that are most responsible for these choices.
Throughout the book, the authors nimbly toggle between insightful descriptions of the theoretical decision models that individuals may employ regarding energy choices and an array of mostly original survey data that sheds insight on the energy-related behaviors of Americans. Beginning with a compelling case for the central role that Americans play in energy policy through their roles as consumers and voters, Ansolabehere and Konsiky successfully build a strong rationale for their dive into public opinion on energy. Given that many scholarly examinations have either ignored or placed public opinion as only a marginal factor in terms of the development of energy policy, their efforts to establish the primacy of public opinion early in the book was both necessary and well executed.
While arguing for a central role of the public in energy policy, the authors neither ignore the misconceptions that Americans maintain regarding many of the attributes of energy sources nor belittle the public’s views on energy matters. They find that the public is generally quite accurate in its appraisals of both the environmental impacts of an array of energy alternatives and the broader costs associated with energy production. In essence, Americans rationally seek energy sources that are both low in cost and enact minimal harm on health and the environment. However, Ansolabehere and Konisky find that the fairly good handle that the public has on the environmental and economic realties of fossil fuels is not matched with solid appraisals of the costs of developing large-scale alternative energy sources. They offer a cogent explanation for the variability in accurate appraisals that rests on inaccurate information provided to the public.
One of the most important contributions of this book to the broader literature on both environment and energy policy is that individual decisions regarding energy are driven much more by consumer concerns than by partisan considerations. Given the broad body of research that finds partisanship to be the most potent predictor of individual beliefs on key environmental issues such as climate change, it is easy to overlook evidence that on many energy choices, party affiliation and ideology have very marginal impact. These findings have important ramifications for scholars and policymakers alike, as they suggest opportunities for the development of an energy policy that might avoid the partisan gridlock that has come to dominate many areas of policy at both the national and subnational levels.
Another salient finding in Cheap and Clean involves the order of preferences that Americans hold in terms of energy sources. While individuals clearly want affordable energy, when they are asked to choose between lower costs and cleaner energy, Americans generally come in on the side of cleaner energy. These findings run counter to many of the assumptions that are made by those in the policymaking domain, who consistently doubt the commitment of the American public on environmental matters. However, Ansolabehere and Konisky make clear that on the whole, Americans do not consider all environmental concerns as equal. In particular, their willingness to pay for cleaner energy is more in response to localized environmental and health concerns related to issues such as clean air and water than it is to concerns with a globalized issue such as climate change. These findings have tremendous ramifications for policymakers as they seek to find communication frames that engender public support for mitigation efforts like cap-and-trade regimes or carbon taxes.
While the relatively small size of the book is an attractive quality, it does leave a few areas where the reader may want more detail. For readers interested in survey methods, a bit more about the methods employed in the measurement of public preferences would have been quite useful. Ansolabehere and Konisky utilize a very impressive array of survey data from the MIT Energy Initiative and the Harvard University Center on the Environment to draw conclusions about where the American public stands on energy. These surveys include some deliberation techniques, as well as innovative experimental designs that would have been valuable to share in more detail with the reader.
It would also be valuable if the authors had paid more attention to isolating any differences in opinion regarding fuel preferences and such matters as willingness to pay across the mobile—stationary divide. In particular, the differences in support for various energy policies may be tied more to the way in which the public interfaces with the energy sources. The authors give broad attention to this subject but would have helped.
This book is a valuable addition to the literature on both public opinion and energy policy. It nicely integrates an abundance of public opinion research into a cohesive narrative regarding where Americans stand on energy issues. Given the central role that public opinion plays in the formation of policy in the United States and the ever-increasing importance of energy as a policy domain, the need for such a complete study is clear. Ansolabhere and Konisky do an outstanding job of building a thorough picture of the views of the American public in terms of their energy preferences and concerns and the ramifications of these views on energy policy in the United States. The writing is clear, and the use of data is accessible to audiences with only moderate quantitative skills. The size of the book allows for a fairly comprehensive review of the research on public opinion regarding energy, while not becoming either redundant or too detailed for a more general academic audience. Ultimately, Cheap and Clean establishes an important framework for further efforts to understand one of the most important and quickly changing policy domains in America.
