The Environmental Mandate: Activists and the Electorate

Public policies often experience momentary national popularity, only to be relegated to a political backburner, where they may be subjected to symbolic substitutions or simply ignored. Thus it is not surprising that in 1972 Anthony Downs equated public attention with public support for environmental protection, and assumed that as the costs of environmental protection became apparent, support for implementation would decline. 1 Whether or not his issue-attention cycle (equating popularity with support) is accurate is important because political support for a policy legitimizes it and facilitates its implementation. As federal environmental laws passed during the euphoric days of the early 1970s come up for renewal, the question of public support for these laws becomes critical. The environmental movement is a loose coalition of old conservation groups concerned with preserving natural amenities, and pollution-control groups established during the late 1960s and early 1970s that are devoted to improving and protecting public health and urban environmental quality. Although the environmental movement is an elite phenomenon (most of its members are drawn from the middle and upper classes),2 environmental interest group