MIDLAND, TEXAS — On the eve of a major Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) plan to allow private companies to store the country’s deadly nuclear waste in the Permian Basin, Americans for Responsible Nuclear Waste is releasing the results from a national survey showing strong, bipartisan opposition to the NRC’s plan.
Opposition to the NRC’s plan cuts across all key demographic breaks: party, gender, age, and race. The majority of likely voters expressed firm opposition to storing deadly nuclear waste close to the country’s most prolific source of energy, the Permian Basin. Similarly, there is an overwhelming consensus that local and state consent should be a prerequisite to the storage of high-level nuclear waste in their jurisdictions.
OnMessage Public Strategies fielded the survey of 1,200 likely voters from July 23-26, 2022. The survey was conducted by live interviewers with a margin of error of +/- 2.8%.
Detailed Polling Results
A clear-cut majority of likely voters, 62 percent, say the federal government should block the storage of nuclear waste in the Permian Basin, finding true bipartisan support.
o 64 percent of Democrats favor blocking storage with 74 percent of Republicans agreeing.
o Majorities of voters from coast to coast believe the storage in the Permian Basin should be blocked, revealing national salience of the issue.
Likely voters do not want nuclear waste in energy rich and environmentally sensitive areas.
o 58 percent of them oppose allowing nuclear waste storage “alongside America’s most productive oil field.”
o While finding majorities of opposition across all demographics, racial minorities express the strongest opposition, at 67 percent of African Americans and 68 percent of Hispanics.
o Similarly, opposition reaches at least 57 percent across party lines.
· Most pronounced is the proportion of voters, 73 percent, who support “requiring private companies to have consent from local and state officials before the storage of nuclear waste.”
o This is bolstered by 58 percent who say they strongly support the requirement.
o The majority is not just strong, but overwhelming – crossing the 70 percent threshold for all generations of voters and for both men and women.
o Support is strikingly consistent across party breaks, reflecting the bipartisan nature of protecting local interest when it comes to nuclear waste.