Climate change has recently been failing to galvanize activists the same way that open internet rules have, according to data on public comments released this week.
After a deadline on input passed Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency said it received more than 1.6 million public comments on proposed rules to limit utilities’ carbon emissions. The Federal Communications Commission received 3.9 million letters on proposed Net Neutrality rules after a deadline on relevant public comments passed in November.
The number of comments on the pollution regulations appear to be relatively more in favor of corporate conglomerates, too. The commentary on the EPA rules came from both environmental groups and industrialists, according to The Hill. But in September, a Sunlight Foundation study of Net Neutrality comments found that 99 percent of comments were in favor of the policy.
The disparity could arise due to the fact that activists and significant moneyed interests are on the same side of the Net Neutrality issue. The Internet Association, a Silicon Valley trade group, cheered President Obama’s Nov. 10 announcement that he wants the “strongest possible rules” to ensure that internet traffic is treated equally.
Either way, both Republicans and Democrats are overwhelmingly are in favor of Net Neutrality by a margin of four-to-one, according to the results of a University of Delaware poll released last month.
Policies designed to stop the catastrophic consequences of climate change, however, have less support. In September, only 61 percent of Americans said they believe that there is “solid evidence the earth has been warming,” according to Pew Research, and only 48 percent called the phenomenon a “major threat.”
The proposed EPA policy would mandate 30 percent cuts to existing utilities’ 2005-level carbon emissions by 2030.
Environmentalist groups have said that the reductions are not deep enough.
Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council David Doniger told The Hill Monday that the United States “can cut carbon pollution even more with substantially the same costs as EPA’s plan, but with very, very large public health and climate protection benefits that dwarf those costs.”
