Deregulation Meets Public Doubt

Executive summary

Congress is moving fast on four deregulatory bills — touching the Endangered Species Act, geothermal energy, broadband infrastructure, and federal building energy standards — and public opinion is more fractured than the slim majority support number suggests. Surveyed on April 20, 2026, the same day the House Rules Committee convened to advance the package, respondents split 50.6% in support versus 32.6% in opposition — but their own written answers lean unmistakably toward climate urgency and stronger environmental protection.

The disconnect is the story. Half the country wants both economic growth and environmental protection at the same time, making the persuadable middle the decisive audience for these bills. Trust in Congress is catastrophically low, and that distrust is the single strongest predictor of fierce opposition. Meanwhile, Gallup's April 2026 polling shows a record-low 35% of Americans rate environmental quality positively — the national backdrop against which this legislative sprint is unfolding.

Key takeaways:

• 50.6% somewhat or strongly support the bills; 32.6% somewhat or strongly oppose them
• 51.2% want government to prioritize both economic growth and environmental protection equally
• Low congressional trust is the strongest driver of strong opposition
• Free-response answers lean toward climate urgency despite surface-level support for the package
• 63% of Americans say government is not doing enough on the environment (Gallup, April 2026)

Context

On April 20, 2026, the House Rules Committee met to clear four bills for floor consideration. The package covered sweeping ground: H.R. 1897, the ESA Amendments Act, would require economic impact analyses before any species is listed as endangered and cap attorneys' fees in ESA litigation. H.R. 5587, the HEATS Act, would waive federal drilling permits and environmental review for geothermal projects on non-federal lands. H.R. 2289, the American Broadband Deployment Act, targets permitting delays for communications infrastructure. And H.R. 4690, the Reliable Federal Infrastructure Act, would repeal the 2007 statutory deadline requiring federal buildings to eliminate fossil fuel energy consumption by FY2030.

This survey captured 89 responses on the same day the committee convened — a real-time snapshot of public sentiment as the legislative machinery moved. The sample skews toward engaged, news-aware adults who were prompted to weigh in on a specific, detailed policy question, making it more informed than a general-population poll but not demographically representative of the broader electorate.

The national environment for these votes is hostile. Gallup's March 2026 survey found that just 35% of Americans rate environmental quality as excellent or good — a record low, down eight points in a single year. Among independents, that positive rating fell 10 points to 34%. A separate April 2026 Earth911 analysis found 57% of Americans believe government is doing too little to protect the environment, up from 50% a year earlier. Congress has already passed 22 Congressional Review Act resolutions in 2025 alone — more than in all prior history combined — rolling back EPA rules on methane emissions, hazardous air pollutants, and California vehicle standards.

Against that backdrop, the four bills under consideration represent the leading edge of the most aggressive federal environmental deregulation push in decades. The Rules Committee blocked all Democratic amendments to the ESA bill before advancing it. The League of Conservation Voters announced it would score all four votes in its 2026 National Environmental Scorecard, raising the political stakes for every member on record.

Findings

A Slim Majority Supports the Package — But Their Own Words Say Otherwise

By the numbers, the deregulatory package clears a bar: 50.6% of respondents somewhat or strongly support the proposed changes, while 32.6% somewhat or strongly oppose them. On the surface, that looks like public backing for the legislation.

But the free-response answers tell a different story. When asked about their concerns with environmental regulatory changes, respondents' written answers scored a mean of -0.21 on a climate urgency scale (where -1 = emphasize climate crisis, +1 = emphasize economic cost) — a statistically significant lean toward climate alarm (p=0.002). On a separate regulatory direction axis, the same respondents scored a mean of +0.15 toward stronger regulation (p=0.02). The top free-response themes were pollution, long-term health costs, and the risk that short-term economic gains outweigh lasting environmental damage.

The most plausible explanation: respondents may be reacting to specific bill framing — geothermal as clean energy, broadband as infrastructure modernization — without fully weighing the deregulatory mechanisms underneath. Or the 16.9% who selected "Other" on the support/oppose question represent genuine ambivalence that the binary read obscures.

Low Trust in Congress Is the Decisive Force Multiplier

The single strongest predictor of fierce opposition is not ideology or environmental concern — it is distrust of Congress. Among respondents who rated their trust in Congress on environmental policy at the lowest levels, the overwhelming majority chose "strongly oppose" the bills (p=0.002). Trust scores across all 88 respondents cluster at 1 to 3 on a 5-point scale, meaning most of the sample starts from a position of skepticism before they even evaluate the policy content.

This matters beyond this survey. Gallup finds 63% of Americans believe government is not doing enough on the environment — a figure driven largely by a 10-point drop among independents. When people distrust the institution making the decisions, the specific merits of legislation become secondary. Every bill in this package carries the institutional credibility risk of a Congress that environmental-leaning voters already view with suspicion.

The implication for bill sponsors is concrete: supporters need to win the process argument, not just the policy argument. The Rules Committee's decision to block all Democratic amendments to the ESA bill before floor consideration hands opponents a ready-made narrative about closed-door deregulation.

The Pragmatic Middle Holds the Cards

The most strategically important finding is the "Both equally" plurality on government priorities. A majority — 51.2% — say the government should prioritize economic growth and environmental protection equally. Only 23.3% chose economic growth alone, and 19.8% chose environmental protection alone.

That 51.2% bloc is not ideologically fixed. Detail-oriented respondents (those scoring higher on the Prism Meticulousness trait) are significantly more likely to land in the "Both equally" category (r=0.362, p=0.001) and less likely to choose "Protecting the environment" alone (r=-0.393). In practical terms, these are voters and constituents who resist single-issue framing — they want to see evidence that economic gains from deregulation do not come at measurable environmental cost.

This pragmatic center is precisely the audience the HEATS Act's bipartisan co-sponsors were courting. Geothermal energy is broadly popular as a clean power source, and the bill's premise — that redundant permitting rounds slow down zero-carbon energy development — has genuine appeal to people who want both. The problem is that the bill's actual text eliminates NEPA review, ESA protections, and tribal consultation requirements across millions of acres of split-estate lands. For the detail-oriented middle, that gap between premise and execution is a vulnerability.

ESA Amendments and Federal Building Rollback Face the Steepest Headwinds

Of the four bills, the ESA Amendments Act (H.R. 1897) and the federal building fossil fuel rollback (H.R. 4690) face the most direct collision with public values.

On the ESA: a 2025 national survey found 78% of Americans support ESA goals and 84% believe the U.S. should prevent endangered species extinction — with support crossing party lines. The current study's free-response data aligns with that: respondents cite species protection as a core concern and lean toward stronger regulation. H.R. 1897 would require economic impact analyses before species are listed, cap attorneys' fees, and reduce protections for species already recovering — changes that alter the fundamental logic of the law. The Rules Committee's "God Squad" provision, exempting Gulf oil drilling from ESA requirements for 25+ species including Rice's whale and Kemp's ridley sea turtle, had already drawn a federal court challenge before the floor vote.

On federal buildings: H.R. 4690 repeals the 2007 EISA timeline that required federal buildings to cut fossil fuel consumption in stages — 55% by 2010, 65% by 2015, 80% by 2020, 90% by 2025 — with full elimination by FY2030. Rolling back benchmarks that have already been met is a harder political sell than blocking future regulation. Combined with independent analysis estimating the EPA endangerment finding repeal is "net costly by $180 billion" without counting trillions in climate and air pollution damages, the economic case for H.R. 4690 is contested ground even among respondents who prioritize growth. Approximately 71% of this survey's respondents — those who chose "Both equally" or "Protecting the environment" as the government's top priority — would be likely to scrutinize that cost-benefit math closely.

Conclusion

These four bills are moving through the legislative process at a moment of peak public environmental anxiety — and the data shows the public mood is more complicated than a 50.6% support headline implies. The pragmatic middle that makes up the majority wants economic and environmental goals addressed simultaneously, not traded off. That audience will be watching whether geothermal deregulation actually delivers clean energy, whether ESA amendments lead to species losing protections, and whether repealing federal building energy timelines raises or lowers long-term costs.

The trust deficit in Congress is the variable to watch. If the ESA bill advances along strict party lines — which E&E News and the Rules Committee record both suggest — every additional procedural move that shuts out amendments or public input will deepen the skepticism that already drives strong opposition. The League of Conservation Voters' decision to scorecard all four votes means members face a clear electoral accountability mechanism.

Watch for Senate action on the geothermal and ESA bills in particular: the HEATS Act's bipartisan House co-sponsorship did not survive the floor vote, and the Senate will be the test of whether any cross-party coalition for clean-energy permitting reform can be rebuilt without gutting the environmental review framework that the pragmatic middle still wants in place.