Industry lobbyists are touting a new poll that obscures the reality of Westerners’ attitudes about energy development. What they miss is that while many Americans, including folks in the West, support a responsible, “all of the above” energy development, they don’t want it to happen at the expense of jobs in the outdoor industry that depend on healthy public lands. Nor do they want oil and gas development to occur at all costs anywhere and everywhere — something we’ve come to expect from an industry that has proposed to drill at the foot of national monuments and even in cemeteries.
In the last year, a range of public polls have backed up that conventional wisdom:
A balanced approach:
- A poll from Public Policy Polling this past July found that 57% of voters—a bipartisan majority—want equal treatment of agriculture, tourism (including recreation and the outdoor economy), and energy development when it comes to decision-making on public lands.
Public lands conservation:
- In a bipartisan poll commissioned by Colorado College earlier this year, 96% of respondents said that an important priority for public lands management is protecting public lands for future generations, and that ensuring access on public lands for recreation should be a priority.
- A poll released just last week by the Outdoor Industry Association found that over 80% of voters in Colorado and Nevada say that public lands, water, and wildlife are at least somewhat important in their voting decisions, and believe that public lands are essential to their state’s economy and quality of life.
Oil and gas:
- A poll from Benenson Strategies last October found that again, a bipartisan majority of voters—68%–believe that natural gas waste from oil and gas operations on public lands should be strongly limited, indicating the need for industry to ensure American taxpayers get their fair share.