Do a State’s Politics Influence Its Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Yes, Study Says
The team didn’t catalog specific policies and their results, which would vary widely in their details from state to state and from case to case. Rather, they analyzed a range of standardized state-level data compiled since 1990, including carbon emissions, as reported by the Environmental Protection Agency; population and gross state product; and “environmentalism,” as measured by congressional voting data compiled by the League of Conservation Voters.
While members of the U.S. Congress are not directly involved in writing state environmental policy, Frank said, the researchers reasoned that voting records would reflect the orientation of their states.
The researchers looked at the statistics in two different ways. First, to get a broad snapshot view, they performed an analysis across all of the states using 1990 data. By and large, they found that states with higher environmentalism ratings had lower emissions, after controlling for population and other factors.
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