One of the political writers I have most admired over the years is Ronald Brownstein, now of the National Journal, which also publishes The Almanac of American Politics of which I am co-author. But his latest piece, on Republican opposition to the Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency, comes in well below his usual mark. It is headlined “Curious cohesion: Why are Republicans from competitive districts supporting efforts to weaken antipollution regulations?” The theme is that House Republicans in the current Congress have voted almost unanimously to overturn and otherwise disapprove or limit EPA regulations, while many Republicans, particularly from coastal areas (he mentions the Northeast, but he could have added Florida, which has had the second or third largest House Republican delegation during much of this period) in the 104th and later Congresses elected starting in 1994 supported EPA measures.
Brownstein’s implications, left unarticulated, run something like this. Today’s Republicans are more ideological or subservient to their leadership or anti-environmental restriction interests than many Republicans in the 1990s. Today’s Republicans, especially in those in Democratic-leaning districts (he uses the benchmark of whether a district voted for Barack Obama in 2008), are taking grave political risks by voting against EPA measures. Finally, today’s EPA regulations have the same putative validity of those in the 1990s.
Let’s unpack all these implications, each of which seems to me to be seriously wrong.
First, that today’s EPA regulations are as worthy and as strongly backed by science as those in the 1990s. This is dubious at best. Much of EPA’s work is proceeding on the scientifically dubious premise that it has been utterly proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that man-made global warming will inflict hideous damage on the planet. This is, in my view, more an expression of religious faith than a conclusion that follows from sober science (which after all admits that any and all of its theories, even Einsten’s, may be proven wrong by further research). EPA was, unfortunately, given a green light to regulate carbon dioxide, the chief “greenhouse gas,” by a misguided 5-4 Supreme Court decision. But the fact is that air quality is far better than it was in the middle 1990s, and it’s not immediately obvious that public health requires hugely expensive new regulations to improve air quality by some very marginal amount. There’s a strong case that the Obama EPA is a whole lot more radical than the Clinton EPA, a case to which Brownstein makes no reference.
Second, the whole thrust of his piece is that Republicans from certain kinds of districts are bucking public opinion in their votes against EPA. But here his benchmark is dubious: Obama carried 242 House districts in 2008, but he is currently in a good position to carry a lot fewer House districts as they will be in 2012. You can argue about how many, since we know his October 2011 but not his November 2012 standing, we don’t know who his Republican opponent will be, the districts have been reapportioned among the states (costing Obama states a net six districts) and redistricting within the states. But the November 2010 election results provide a more relevant benchmark to opinion today than the November 2008 election results, as a glance at any array of polls will confirm. And the parties’ percentages in the popular vote for the House have been converging with the parties’ percentages in the popular vote for president. In November 2010, Republicans were elected in 242 House districts and Democrats in 193 districts. Only a very few Republicans were elected in districts which seem to lean heavily Democratic today, given the 9% swing in the two parties’ percentages in the House popular vote—the biggest such swing since 1946 and 1948—between 2008 and 2010. As Brownstein has recognized in other writings, you had more Republicans representing Democratic-leaning House districts and vice versa in the middle 1990s than you have had in recent years. So if he wants to focus on House Republicans representing Democratic-leaning districts today, he is looking at a very small universe—considerably smaller than the wording of his article suggests.
And how much of a political risk are they taking? Brownstein, surprisingly given his alertness to changes in public opinion, makes no reference to the myriad of polling that shows Americans far more suspicious of the claims of global warming alarmists specifically and environmental restriction groups in general than they were as recently as 2008. There are some intervening events that help to explain that movement of opinion: the Climategate emails, other indications that global warming alarmists scientists conspired to manipulate data, suppress conflicting information, seize on the weakest bits of evidence (the IPCC’s claim that the Himalayan glacier would melt in 2035 was based on one enviro group’s claim it would melt in 2350!) and otherwise lie and cheat in the service of what amounts to something much more like religion than science. I recommend that Brownstein consult the writings of Walter Russell Mead on this subject if he is dubious about my description. In any case, public opinion on environmental issues generally, and on EPA regulation in particular, is considerably different and significantly less favorable than it was in the 1990s. Then the threat that environmental groups would run negative ads against Republicans in coastal districts prompted many to vote as those groups wanted. Today those threats carry less weight, and members are responding accordingly.
I look forward to Ron Brownstein’s next articles in which I feel sure he will rise to his usual level of piercing insight and wide knowledge.
