Economic incentives or racial bias? Public opinion and racial inequities in power plant siting in the United States

Abstract

For decades, scholars have documented socioeconomic inequities in the siting of power plants. However, these observational studies cannot determine if inequality is a correlate or cause of power plant location. I evaluate one possible causal mechanism, public opinion, through an original survey experiment that is the first to evaluate the impact that community race and income have on attitudes about power plant siting and the first to evaluate drivers of public opinion towards power plants in communities other than their own. I show that voters hold strongNIMBY attitudes towards power plants, being 30 % more supportive of a plant's construction in communities other than their own. I also show that they form those attitudes based on economic factors (plant externalities, site suitability, and community income) rather than racial bias. By testing one possible causal mechanism underlying socioeconomic inequities, I advance the literature on environmental justice and climate politics, demonstrating how the public can reinforce socioeconomic inequities by following economic incentives rooted in discrimination without themselves holding discriminatory views.