Most Voters Want Fossil Fuel Companies To Pay Up For Climate Damage

77% of American voters believe, to varying degrees, that fossil fuel companies are responsible for endangering the climate and they want them to have to pay for the damage that they have caused. This is clearly a winning issue for politicians, and it would be a major boost to efforts to fight climate change and abate the damages. But the fossil fuel industry's hold on our elected officials is still stronger than the will of the public, and getting real reform will take more than just a poll. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Earlier this year, Democratic Senator Chris van Hollen, introduced a piece of legislation called Make Polluters Pay. Now that piece of legislation is still kicking around out there, and it's something that desperately needs to be passed and according to a new poll, a majority of people in this country actually agree with this legislation. What the legislation would do is it would create a fund of about $500 billion, all of that money would come from the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage they have caused to the climate. You know, it would be used to tackle climate change abatement, you know, it would be used to help green the US economy. It would basically try to undo the damage to a degree, obviously 500 billion is not enough to do all of it, but it would make these people pay because they're the ones who are responsible for the majority of emissions. So it's a pretty smart piece of legislation. And new poll shows majority of voters in the United States support it. 77% of likely voters say fossil fuel companies should take a lot or some responsibility in addressing the climate crisis. 65% support the idea of the fund. And here's where it gets a little, little iffy here. When you break it down by party affiliation, 83% of Democrats support the legislation.

There is a 40 point gap and not, that's not even a gap that is a gulf between Democrats and Republicans because only 43% of Republicans think we should do it. But I think using the word only there is bad, 43% of Republicans, almost half support this idea. So you have more than 80% of Democrats who want it, nearly half of Republicans who want it. When you put them all together, you've got 65% of the country saying yes, do this thing and that to me is the part we need to focus on because I don't think only 43% of Republicans, you know, supporting this is a good talking point. I think the fact that we have Republicans serving in DC that are so adamantly against any form of, you know, climate action, to be honest, but 43% of their voters are out there saying no, no, no, no, no. Make these guys pay. And I think part of the reason we're seeing this has to do with the fact that we're also seeing climate change right now. All year long, we have watched one extreme weather event to another, to another, to another, to another. Snow storms in Texas, knocking out the power grid. Heat domes over the Western United States. Wildfires, floods, droughts, other extreme weather events, sea, seawall erosion, sea level rise. We are living through the effects of climate change right now.

And it's getting harder for more and more voters out there to say that we shouldn't do something about this. The only holdup really is DC, is the House and the Senate. A lot of it is coming from Republicans. Most of it is coming from Republicans, but not all of it is. We still have a couple of Democrats out there who value their fossil fuel money more than they value the lives of their own constituents. And therein lies the problem, not just with the Democrats, but clearly with the Republicans, as well. As long as fossil fuel money is allowed to dominate politics we're going to be stuck dragging our feet. We're going to be stuck with inaction.