Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

BACKGROUND and RESEARCH GOAL: Oklahoma has experienced an unprecedented number of earthquakes since 2009. While earthquakes are generally considered a geophysical natural disaster, recent research by seismologists suggests that the majority of these earthquakes in Oklahoma have been triggered by the injection of wastewater produced by oil and gas companies. Given this situation, the public demand for government regulation of the oil and gas industry as a risk mitigation tool or policy has increased. These unique circumstances allow us to investigate what factors affect the forming of individual preferences for state and federal government involvement in risk mitigation associated with earthquakes in Oklahoma.

HYPOTHESES: Previous research has identified political ideology and general risk perceptions as important in explaining preferences for government action. In our paper, we introduce two new, important concepts to this study: beliefs on the origin of earthquakes as well as oil and gas industry experience. We expect that people with industry experience will demand less government intervention. Additionally, people will demand government involvement if they believe earthquakes are caused by human actions. In addition, we hypothesize that the effect of political ideology will be moderated by the perception of earthquake cause; that is, believing earthquakes are caused by human action will reduce the negative effect of conservative beliefs on demand for government intervention.

DATA and METHODS: We draw our data from the 9th wave of the2016 Oklahoma Weather, Society and Government Survey. This internet survey intends to measure individual Oklahomans’ views on government policies and societal issues. Our data was collected between March 3 and April 18, 2016. To analyze our data, we conduct a series of multivariate regression models using R. Our first dependent variable is demand for Oklahoma State government intervention. Our second dependent variable is demand for federal government intervention. Besides the main variables-risk perception, oil and gas experience, political ideology and perception of earthquake cause, we include covariates for gender, race and education. As stated, we also create an interaction variable between political ideology and perception of earthquake cause.

PRELIMINARY RESULT: We find relationships that are both significant and in the expected direction for our main independent variables: risk perception, oil and gas experience, political ideology and perception on earthquake. Comparing these effects for federal and state intervention, we find important differences in magnitudes. Finally, we do find that the effect of political ideology is moderated by perception of earthquake cause.

CONCLUSIONS: Our research highlights the importance of beliefs about causality and professionalization and their interactions with political ideology. Future research and surveys should assess beliefs about specific policy interventions, such as financial penalties on wastewater injection, rather than government intervention generically, especially in a new and salient area such as this. However, we think our research is an important step in examining how beliefs about causality and professionalization can moderate or intensify other aspects of individuals’ belief systems and support for public policy.