California Business Roundtable

The California Business Roundtable and Pepperdine University School of Public Policy today released the first results of their 2013 statewide issue survey series on issues affecting California’s business climates and jobs. Today’s release includes topline results of voter opinions on a variety of energy and environmental issues.

“We’re pleased to continue our partnership with Pepperdine University to provide policymakers and other participants in the public policy process important insights into how Californians see issues facing the state,” said Rob Lapsley, President, California Business Roundtable. “We started our first survey on energy policy issues because of the critical role that energy costs have on our economy and the lives of ordinary Californians.”

This survey found that Californian’s clearly see global warming as a threat to the environment with 37.8 % of voters saying it’s a serious threat and 33.2% see it as a moderate threat. Voters also overwhelmingly support increasing the use of renewable energy like solar, water and wind. However, when it came to paying the costs of these energy sources 53% of voters are unwilling to pay more for gas, electricity, food or other consumer goods to increase the use of green energy.

“Californian’s agree the state must address climate change and support increased use of renewable energy,” said Jeff Harrelson, MFour Research. “However, many Californians still find themselves in a precarious economic situation so they are more concerned about energy’s impact on their bottom line. They don’t want to see energy costs increase. As policymakers make decisions on how to increase our use of alternative and green energy it’s critical they do so in a way that takes into account the direct costs to consumers.”

“We found Californians are even willing to ease environmental regulations to tap existing reserves of energy, including hydraulic fracturing in the Monterey Shale,” said Dr. Michael Shires, Pepperdine University. “They want more and greener energy, as long as it does not cost them any more from their pocketbooks. Even to fund important state programs, less than half are ready raise taxes on oil and gas extraction.”

When it comes to the energy issues of oil and gas, a majority of Californian’s don’t support taxing oil and natural gas extraction to pay for state programs. Just 49.4% of those surveyed are willing to tax oil and natural gas extraction in California to help pay for state education, tax and social service programs.

View the topline survey results.

On Thursday, CBRT and Pepperdine will release the full results of the survey, including crosstabs, which include legislative and gubernatorial approval rating and voter sentiment on jobs and the economy.

About the methodology: MFour Research, a public opinion and market research firm fielded the survey. It was distributed to 825 California registered voters (240 Republicans, 362 Democrats, and 223 No Party Preference/Voters of another party) from April 26 to April 29, 2013. Registered voters were identified by self-identification. A Spanish language version of the study was provided to 57 respondents.

Panelists were recruited from a variety of online-panel sources and invited to complete surveys in exchange for monetary compensation, typically in the form of redeemable points, provided through their panel provider.

Prospective participants were invited via email from their panel provider to participate in a survey on “public issues” and told the approximate length of time and value for completion. The cash value for participation in this survey was approximately 50 to 75 cents.

Samples were weighted by gender, age, ethnicity, education, region of residence in California, and voter party registration to reflect the California registered voter counts. Demographic weighting targets were based on census estimates and voter-file projections.

A sample size of 825 produces a margin of error of +/- 3.5% at the 95th percent confidence interval. In addition to sampling error, the types of questions being asked and methodological difficulties in conducting surveys can produce error and/or bias in the findings.

Survey administration and reporting was conducted in accordance with the Council of American Survey Research Organization (CASRO) standards.