Most Utahns oppose President Donald Trump’s scaling back of Barack Obama’s environmental regulations, a new UtahPolicy.com poll finds.
And most Utahns believe those environmental rollbacks will hurt the environment, a new survey by Dan Jones & Associates shows.
Overall, Utahns, even many Republicans, have had their concerns about Trump – even though he won Utah’s six Electoral College votes in November’s election.
Still, previous Jones’ polls for UtahPolicy have shown majority support for many of the new president’s initiatives.
But on the environment issues, they part ways. Jones finds:
- 53 percent of Utahns oppose Trump’s scaling back of Obama’s environmental regulations, which include all kinds of things, from water quality to coal production to climate change.
- 42 percent support Trump’s environmental agenda.
- And 5 percent don’t know.
It appears that just about anything Trump does, or proposes, will fall out along partisan lines. And there’s no difference with the environment.
- Utah Republicans support Trump’s environmental rollbacks, 61-34 percent.
- Democrats oppose them, 93-6 percent.
- Political independents also oppose the rollbacks, 70-25 percent.
On a second question – Do you think the rollbacks will hurt, help or make no difference on the environment – Jones finds:
- 56 percent say it will hurt the environment.
- Only 7 percent say the scale backs in regulations will actually help the environment.
- While 32 percent (a third) say the Trump changes will have no impact on the environment – with the flipside being that a third believe Obama’s more restrictive regs didn’t help the environment, either.
Besides the partisan divide, the largest opponents to Trump’s environmental changes are women and younger Utahns:
- Women oppose Trump’s rollbacks, 61-32 percent.
- While Utah men support the environmental changes, 51-47 percent.
- And 18-34-year-olds overwhelmingly oppose the rollbacks by majorities over 67 percent.
Older Utahns are more accepting of them.
Utah Mormons are conservatives, overall. But they are also taught to be good stewards of the environment.
Jones finds that “very active” Mormons favor Trump’s environment rollbacks, but only by a 53-41 percent.
On the other scale, those who said they are “very conservative” politically favor the rollbacks, 77-16 percent.
Wasatch Front counties, of course, suffer from polluted air at various times of the year.
And even most Utah GOP leaders support clean air initiatives, like the recent announcements by several oil refineries moving to produce Tier III cleaner gasoline.
Jones polled 844 adults from March 22-29. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.37 percent.
