The Causes and Consequences of Conservative Support for Climate Legislation

• In Event: Representation and Responsiveness

Abstract

We seek to unpack evolving Republican support for climate change legislation on Capitol Hill. Over the last few decades, environmental policy, and especially climate change legislation, became a forum of intense party conflict. As Democrats in Washington grew more supportive, Republicans became more opposed to legislation and policy proposals aiming at fighting the causes and effects of global climate change. Indeed, while bipartisan majorities supported the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1991, nearly unanimous Republican opposition contributed to the failure to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the Democrats’ climate change proposal of the Obama Administration. In the interim, the parties increasingly diverged rhetorically, as well, with Republicans becoming more skeptical of human-driven climate change (e.g., Tesler 2018). At the present, Republican resistance is the most important obstacle to significant climate change legislation.

However, there have recently been some perceptible shifts in Republican positioning on climate change. In the House of Representatives, there now exists a Conservative Climate Caucus with close to 80 Republican members which acknowledges a human role in climate change, as it is dedicated to “Educate House Republicans on climate policies and legislation consistent with conservative values.” Moreover, recent legislative efforts on the environment and climate change have earned significant Republican support, including legislation to authorize $35 billion in spending on wind, solar and other clean power sources and curtail the use of planet-warming chemicals in air-conditioners and refrigerators (both in 2020). However, at the same time, Republicans voted in lock-step against the Inflation Reduction Act and its landmark climate change policies, and have since taken steps to try to rescind some of those funds.

Despite these developments, there have been few scholarly efforts to understand Republican evolution on climate change. In this paper, we do just that, seeking to understand where, why, and how Republican positioning has changed in the period where climate change has been a salient issue (1980 – present). To do so, we take stock of national party positioning on climate change, and compare that to the actions of individual Republican House members. Existing studies focus exclusively on roll call votes for member-level positioning on climate change (i.e. Karol 2019). We use a variety of additional data sources —floor speeches, bill sponsorship and cosponsorship decisions, and caucus memberships – to gain a more nuanced perspective on which Republicans have shifted positions on this issue, how, and why. Our results should provide insight into how the politics of climate change in the United States have developed historically and may continue to evolve in the coming years.

Authors

• James M. Curry, University of Utah

• Robert Oldham, Princeton University

• Sam Simon