Climate-Related Natural Disasters and Voting Behavior: Evidence from Environmental Legislation in the US Senate

Abstract

This study investigates whether US senators are more likely to vote in favor of environmentally friendly legislation following damages caused by climate-related natural disasters. We combine senatorial scores of roll call votes on environmental legislation with modeled state-level human and economic natural disaster losses over a 44-year period. Our results show that support for environmental legislation increases in response to unusual human losses but does not respond to unusual economic losses. We also find that the documented response to natural disasters is two years and relatively short-lived. Geography, constituent partisanship, local economic conditions, and senatorial experience affect the magnitude and precision of the treatment effect.