17 research outputs found
Support for Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling among the California Public
This report describes Californians’ opinions about offshore oil and gas development. The report begins by describing the trends in support for offshore drilling since 1977. It then focuses on explaining the surge of support for offshore oil drilling that accompanied the rapid increase in gasoline prices in 2000 and 2001. In this report, we present data from a series of public opinion polls of Californians, which were conducted between 1977 and 2001. The surveys were conducted by the Field Institute, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit public opinion research organization established by the Field Research Corporation. The samples were representative cross-sections of California adults with sample sizes ranging from 485 to 1,034 (See the data appendix for details). We should also note that this study updates some of the information published in a previous MMS report, Trends in Public Opinion on Offshore Oil Development in California (Smith 1995), and in the recently published book, Energy, the Environment, and Public Opinion (Smith 2002)
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Public Support for Oil and Gas Drilling in California's Forests and Parks
Offshore oil drilling has been controversial in California for decades. Oil drilling in national forests has never received the same kind of attention, but because of the Bush administration’s decision to increase oil development in the national forests, attention is likely to increase. This paper examines public opinion regarding oil drilling in California’s forests. We find that attitudes toward drilling for oil in national forests are similar to attitudes toward offshore oil drilling. This implies that oil drilling in the national forests can easily develop into a national controversy
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Trust During an Energy Crisis
In every energy crisis the U.S. has faced—beginning with the first crisis in 1973—we have seen a common sequence of events, which has been labelled the “energy crisis cycle” (Smith 2002). The steps in the cycle are: (1) When the demand for energy exceeded the supply, energy prices rose sharply — starting the energy crisis cycle. (2) Along with increases in energy prices came large increases in the profits of energy producers. (3) Politicians and interest group advocates criticized the energy industry for their greed in profiting at other people’s misfortune, and charged them with manipulating prices to increase profits. Some critics even claimed that the energy industry fabricated the energy crisis to increase profits. (4) Most of the public believed the industry critics. They did not accept claims that the energy crisis was real, and so they felt justified in demanding that the government fix the problem without any cost to the public. (5) In response to public demands, some politicians sought to protect the public from high prices with price controls or subsidies—steps that worsened the crisis because they encouraged energy consumption in a time of shortages. In our paper, we investigate the causes of distrust in the oil industry during the 2000-2002 period of high gasoline prices. To do so, we use a public opinion survey of Californians, which included a battery of questions about trust in the oil industry, in government officials regulating the oil industry, and in environmental groups, as well as a specific question asking whether respondents believed that the oil industry was manipulating prices to increase profits. We model trust as a function of basic values (party identification, ideology, egalitarianism, individualism,) and political awareness, using the approach mapped out by John Zaller in The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Although we cannot investigate the dynamic way in which distrust builds over time as energy prices rise, we can explore the sorts of people who accept competing explanations for the energy crisis