"Coal State Voters Unlikely To Back Climate-Friendly Candidates"

"Most voters in eight coal-heavy states would oppose a Senate candidate who supports the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest carbon pollution rules for power plants, a mining industry-backed survey concluded.

The survey released Thursday found that 55.2 percent of respondents would opposes Senate candidates who like the EPA’s proposal, compared with 31.4 percent who would support such a candidate, said the National Mining Association (NMA), which commissioned the poll.

Only 37.3 percent of voters said they support the EPA’s proposal to cut power plant carbon emissions by 30 percent, and 47.1 percent oppose it. Opposition increased when pollsters told respondents the rules would cause a “short term hit” to consumers, that states would have to use “cap and trade, tax and regulatory programs” to comply and that it could result in hundreds of thousands of jobs lost."

Timothy Cama reports for The Hill Jue 12, 2014.