Every other Friday, the Outside/In team here at NHPR answers listener’s questions about the natural world. This week, we dive into a question that Kaelin in Dover, New Hampshire, shared earlier this year:
“I recently voted in the New Hampshire primary election and was wondering if local or federal elections have a greater impact on environmental policies.”
Producer Marina Henke looked into it.
Transcript
This has been edited for length and clarity.
Marina Henke: I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in just a few days we are having a massive election. Which also means, ‘tis the season to hear one word a lot: policy. But as a voter, it can be hard to see the impact of your vote – especially when it comes to specific issues, like environmental policy.
Sarah Anderson: These are sticky, hard problems that take a lot of different approaches.
Marina Henke: This is Dr. Sarah Anderson, an environmental politics professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara. She’s quick to say – this is not a straightforward question.
First, let’s remind ourselves who we’re even voting for in these elections. At the federal level, this might be more obvious: your house reps, senators, the president.
But for local elections, every district is different. You might be voting for mayor, school board members, city councilors, sheriff, and even ballot questions. The question becomes – what kinds of policies are passed at these different levels? Let’s start at the top, with the federal. Why? Well…
Sarah Anderson: Because it’s easy to think about federal policy only. We think about the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and the EPA regulating the environment.
Marina Henke: I am so guilty of this. Because these are the big environmental policies that make it into our textbooks. And for good reason! I mean, before the Clean Water Act, rivers were catching fire. But local environmental policy? Call me a nerd, but this is where things get interesting, and tangible.
Sarah Anderson: They are things like where do we put houses vs where do we put a factory or what is our city going to do with respect to long term planning for climate impacts?
Marina Henke: Zoning, planning for sea level rise, new bike routes. These are all policies that your local reps might make happen — or not. Now if you’re like Kaelin and wondering “well, which level of government has a bigger impact?” Sarah thinks about this in terms of something called “fit.”
Sarah Anderson: Does the scale of the government match the scale of the problem? Because that’s probably who needs to be handling that problem.
Marina Henke: Let’s say your city sees thousands of commuters every day, and wants to introduce congestion pricing to help with air quality. Fantastic issue for a mayor to handle. Trying to push a national carbon tax? Sounds like a problem for the federal government. Ideally, these policies work in tandem. Federal government provides the structure and a lot of the time, state and municipal governments determine how this plays out on the ground.
Marina Henke: Now sometimes, cities and states can also lead the way by passing policies that bypass or even put pressure on the federal government. Like, after the Trump Administration withdrew their support of the Paris Climate Agreement, more than 400 mayors promised to uphold those goals in their cities. Of course, there’s a whole other way to think about the impact of elections on environmental policy – and that is where is YOUR vote going to get more bang for its buck?
Sarah Anderson: If we even just think about this mathematically, your vote is really much more important in local elections. There are just fewer people paying attention, fewer people voting, and actually it’s a little bit harder.
Marina Henke: Harder – because local issues can be complex, and finding information can be tough Sarah says. But – while it might be a little more legwork to do the research for those races – the farther down the ballot you vote, the farther your vote will go.
If you’d like to submit a question to the Outside/In team, you can record it as a voice memo on your smartphone and send it to outsidein@nhpr.org. You can also leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER.