Public Perceptions of the Energy Problem

There have been few issues in recent years on which a public consensus was more needed—and more lacking—than that of energy. Worse still, from the standpoint of getting an energy program in motion, there are widespread attitudes of cynicism, disbelief, ignorance, and simple unconcern. This is hardly the appropriate backdrop for a legislative reconciliation.

Concern, where it does exist, is mostly for the pocketbook. Rather few can be persuaded that there is any virtue in still higher energy prices. Rather many are concerned about the impact of energy costs and supplies on their personal livelihoods. Beyond this, there are conflicting and overlapping stances. For example:

• Faced with a direct question, the bulk of the American public is ready to attach the word "serious" to the "energy problem."
• Some persons are persuaded that nothing less than immediate and far-reaching changes in life-style will provide a solution.
• Others believe that nothing but governmental ineptness, if not outright governmental-industrial conspiracy stands in the way of substituting solar energy for the oil, gas, coal, or nuclear power they have come to distrust.
• There are those who want to get on with the job of energy supply, whatever the form and whatever the risks, in order not to hobble economic growth.
• There are those who are still willing "to leave it to the experts."
• There are those who think it is only a matter of putting an end to "rip-offs."

The proximity of nuclear plant sites or of nuclear waste deposits and transportation routes worries people more than the country's aggregate amounts of nuclear power generation. A new oil facility just offshore is a bigger threat than the unreliability of substitute sources in the Middle East.

What the polls show. If any proof were needed of the sad state of general knowledge on energy questions, it was provided by a springtime Gallup poll which found that barely half the U.S. public knew for sure that the United States imported oil. Conversely, both that same poll and a CBS News-New York Times poll taken around midyear found that a third of the public believed we were completely self-sufficient. This was at a time when imported petroleum was actually providing about half the total supply. For a large number of Americans, the energy problem is seen only in terms of soaring utility bills and intermittently rising gasoline prices.

If only because they were asked, a fair number of people seem to have opinions on the administration's energy plan. Their opinions are highly influenced by personal impact. Of those polled early in 1977 by Cambridge Reports, Inc., 59 percent (63 percent of those with an opinion one way or the other) were opposed to the administration's gasoline tax and 50 percent (56 percent of those with an opinion) were opposed to the "gas guzzler" tax. Only 55 percent, by contrast, had a view, even when asked, regarding the breeder reactor (more than half of those expressing an opinion were opposed).

Either the maturation of public opinion or the variability of polls is illustrated by the fact that a Harris poll, taken in December, found sharp differences in attitude. According to the later survey, a majority—51 percent of those questioned and 55 percent of those with an opinion—were now in favor of a gas-guzzler tax. As might be expected, the Cambridge group had found that the bulk of the then opposition to such a tax was among lower income groups. Among the most affluent and the most highly educated, the idea could command something of a majority from the start. Similarly, only the most affluent were found to be in favor of such a proposition as letting the price of "new" oil rise to world levels. By December, however, the Harris organization was finding a clear overall majority in favor of at least the crude oil equalization tax. Even as of December, however, no more than a quarter of the total population was ready to endorse a big increase in natural gas prices.

The CBS-New York Times poll (mid-1977) found that energy is considered less serious a problem than crime, inflation, health, unemployment, education, or national defense. This result was consistent with that of a late-1976 Gallup poll in which energy did not figure among the top seven or so responses to an open-ended question as to the country's most important problem. In March 1977, however, after a winter of regional gas and fuel-oil shortages and in the midst of advance publicity on the administration's forthcoming energy program, 23 percent of Gallup's respondents volunteered the energy crisis as one of the nation's top problems. What caused it to be so rated is not entirely clear. According to the CBS-New York Times survey, taken after the administration's program was announced, just about half of all Americans were convinced that there was no real energy shortage, and some 60 percent felt that whatever the energy problem, the president was exaggerating it. According to Gallup polls, the president did succeed by his April presentation in raising by 3 percentage points (to 44 percent) the proportion of the public willing to term the energy problem as "very serious," but he did not do as well as the Arabs had done in the winter of 1973-74, since the comparable January 1974 figure was 46 percent.

Though some people would like to see more mass transit and greater use of car pools, there is little enthusiasm for personal energy conservation efforts. The Cambridge report, for example, found 48 percent of respondents believing that conservation was "not a realistic solution to the energy crisis unless we are all prepared to accept a much lower standard of living." Exactly half were ready to agree that it was the "other guy" who was the real wastrel. Still, a little more than half felt that there might be some room for a personal contribution. Most people who have thought about the energy question would rather see a technological fix, so that employment and income are not threatened. This view is particularly widespread in industrial areas dependent upon blue-collar employment.

The utility of conservation is accepted in the abstract, however, and appears to be more acceptable in the concrete if there is a governmental imposition of equitable burden sharing. "Equitable," in the minds of most, excludes supply allocation through the pricing mechanism.

In general, government is much less the object of cynicism than are the oil companies. In the Cambridge poll, 70 percent of those questioned agreed that oil companies have "conspired" to exacerbate oil and gas shortages "in order to get higher prices"; only 17 percent expressly rejected the allegation. Similarly, 47 percent were willing to attribute the 1976-77 natural gas shortages to the deliberate withholding of supplies. Only 21 percent (and this was more than in earlier polls) thought the oil companies were doing their best.

There are limits, however, to the acceptance of a governmental alternative: 52 percent of those questioned were in favor of "a national energy corporation that would conduct research and also own energy resources on public lands"; only 29 percent expressly favored nationalization of major oil companies. And although five out of six respondents would place some trust in the president on such a matter as energy conservation, only one out of three would trust him "a lot," and only one out of four would put a similar degree of trust in the (then) Energy Research and Development Administration. This is about the same degree of trust the general public would have in "conservation information" provided by Ralph Nader and about four times as much trust as they would place in business or labor leaders. Only "scientists and engineers" match the president in overall standing.

One kind of poll, the state referendum, which in November of 1976 had permitted a rather large number of respondents to express their opinion on nuclear energy, was not repeated in 1977. In November 1976, initiatives intended to make it very difficult to construct new nuclear plants were defeated in all six states in which they were advanced, adding to a similar defeat in California earlier in the year. In November 1977, there was only one, rather indirect, question on a ballot: the proposal for a state bond issue in Oregon to finance nonnuclear energy projects. It, too, was defeated. Harris polls have been showing all along that a majority of the public would rather have nuclear energy than insufficient energy; the balloting suggests that this is true even in the most environmentally conscious states.

What Congress hears. Not all the polls, of course, consistently come up with the same answers. (The sampling error alone, at 95 percent "confidence," is usually two to three percentage points.) One must also wonder to what extent they are getting answers to questions that respondents would not otherwise have asked themselves. One can perceive the same general interests and leanings, however, in a variety of other attitude indicators.

One indicator is the flow of inquiries from congressmen to the Congressional Research Service—a flow that mirrors the changing interests and concerns (and frequently the direct questions) of constituents as much as it does the current legislative docket. Though the inquiries cover a wide range of specific questions, they gravitate around a limited number of basic concerns, gripes, and perceptions, with remarkably little change during the course of a year. Both at the beginning of 1977 and at year's end, congressmen and their constituents were wondering about the impact of energy conservation on economic growth. They were greatly concerned about energy prices, and since the issue had not been settled, they were asked at both ends of the year about the effects of deregulation. There was continuing interest in the specifics of how given events or a particular proposal would affect an industry or a state or geographic region.

As the year wore on, there was a more sophisticated searching out of the specifics of production costs, profits, and prices, but the question was still one of how fairly the public was being treated by the oil companies. There was apparently decreasing suspicion that companies were withholding oil and gas supplies and an increasing interest in oil and gas company lobbying. There was a sustained interest in the potential for conservation and more than a passing interest in what kinds of public incentives and assistance might be available for improved insulation. There has been a more persistent or growing interest in such issues as the handling of nuclear waste, the feasibility of large-scale expansion of coal production, environmental impacts and the potential of offshore oil and gas, other potentials on federal lands, and the role of strategic reserves. There is a continuing interest in how much of today's energy problem was predicted or predictable and what, in the past, was done about it.

Implied in such questions is the diversity of attitude and of concern that was noted at the outset. It is a diversity that one may assume is not confined to the minor portions of constituencies that are in direct touch with their congressional representatives, since it is the business of those representatives also to divine unvoiced concerns. The same diversity of view, moreover, may be discerned in other forums which provide opportunity for broad public representation.

What some educators think. One particularly revealing forum during the year was a June meeting of educational leaders under the auspices of the Council for Educational Development and Research. The prevailing theme of the conference was the urgent need for commitment, not just to energy conservation, but to a new way of life in light of their certainty that this planet cannot support continued economic growth along accustomed lines for more than a few more decades. The major controversy among those educators inclined to this view was not over its validity, but the degree to which the seriousness of the problem justifies purposeful indoctrination of their charges, rather than merely providing them with the information necessary to reach their own reasoned judgments. Yet, from the working groups of the conference and from conversations with individual participants, it was possible to conclude that this sense of conviction regarding the "imperatives" of the future was not in fact the feeling of the majority. Those attending the conference were all interested in energy—they had been self-selected. But most came and left as agnostics, just as skeptical and as confused about the facts and the answers as nearly everybody else.