Energy and Environment in the Midterm Elections

Date

Oct. 4, 2006

Event Series

Gas Pumps and Voting Booths: Energy and Environment in the Midterm Elections
RFF First Wednesday Seminar
October 4, 2006

Judging from the barrage of new reports on oil prices and global warming over the past year, energy and the environment would seem to be poised to play a major role in November's midterm elections. But will these issues, which seem to matter so much to consumers, actually drive the voters to the polls?

Our panel will look at how energy and the environment are shaping the campaigns, and how the outcome of the vote might shape future policy decisions on these issues. We'll also consider what issues might be gaining interest at the local level, and take a look ahead at what might be in store on these topics in the 110th Congress and in the 2008 presidential election.

Introduction: Phil Sharp
President, Resources for the Future

Moderator: Janet Hodur
Public Affairs Manager
Resources for the Future

Hodur has handled public affairs and media outreach for Resources for the Future since September 2004. Prior to joining RFF, she was a communications specialist at the International Food Policy Research Institute, focused on building media awareness of international hunger, agriculture, and development issues. She holds a B.A. in broadcast journalism from Marquette University, and an M.S. in international affairs, focused on development, from Florida State University.

Jon A. Krosnick
Frederic O. Glover Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, Stanford University
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For 25 years, Krosnick has conducted research exploring how the American public's political attitudes are formed, change, and shape thinking and action. He is principal investigator of the American National Election Study, the nation's preeminent academic project exploring voter decisionmaking and political campaign effects, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. An expert on questionnaire design and survey research methodology, he designed a recent survey on Americans' attitudes on the environment conducted jointly by Stanford University, ABC News, and Time magazine. Krosnick teaches communication, political science, and psychology at Stanford. He holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in social psychology from the University of Michigan.

Juliet Eilperin
Environment Correspondent, Washington Post

Eilperin joined The Washington Post in March 1998 as its House of Representatives reporter, and since April 2004, she has covered the environment for the national desk, reporting on science, policy and politics in areas including climate change, oceans, and air quality. In the spring of 2005, she served as the youngest-ever McGraw Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, teaching political reporting to a group of undergraduate and graduate students. This spring Rowman & Littlefield published her first book, Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship Is Poisoning the House of Representatives. Before joining The Washington Post, Eilperin wrote for Louisiana and Florida papers at States News Service and then joined Roll Call newspaper after the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994. She graduated in 1992 magna cum laude from Princeton University, where she received a B.A. in politics with a certificate in Latin American Studies.

Elizabeth Shogren
Environment Reporter, National Public Radio

Shogren, a veteran newspaper reporter, came to NPR in February 2005 to cover environmental issues on the National Desk. Prior to NPR, she spent 14 years as a reporter on a variety of beats at the Los Angeles Times. For the last four years she reported on environmental issues in Washington, D.C., and across the country. From 1993-2000, she worked from Los Angeles Times' Washington bureau covering the White House, Congress, social policy, money and politics, and presidential campaigns. During that time, she traveled abroad to cover incidents such as the Kosovo crisis in 1999, the Bosnian war in 1996, and Russian elections in 1993 and 1996. Before joining the Washington bureau, Shogren was based in Moscow, where she covered the breakup of the Soviet Union and the rise of democracy in Russia. She holds a B.A. in Russian studies at the University of Virginia and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University.

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Energy and Environment in the Midterm Elections

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