GoodFuels

[...] several polls conducted last week, Americans want more ethanol for fuel use, check this out. After all, biofuels is not just about [...]

[...] reported last week that by a 2 to 1 margin, American voters support increasing the use of ethanol in our motor fuel [...]

As a supporter of ethanol production, I am discouraged by the way that these two surveys were conducted; it is designed with an outcome bias that will provide ethanol opponents an opportunity to discredit it.

According to the published summary, the survey(s) were conducted with an over-sampling of two groups that are easily interpreted as biasing the results: Environmentalists, and college-educated voters following national issues/news (”Opinion Formers”). The survey should have been conducted with a uniform criteria sampling of respondents, with no over-sampling of special groups.

In addition, the Statistical Power of the study is extremely low, ie, too small a sample size compared to the target audience for the topic. This alone will be enough to damage the credibility of the study

It would be great to have a strong survey that can be easily defended; hopefully, someone will do that soon. Until then, citing this survey’s results to the people I evangelize will harm my personal credibility as an expert info source, so regretfully I’ll have to await something better. Worse yet, tho, is the trouble caused to the industry by promotion of this by others. Just when we are in an almost Perfect Storm of problems that are casting ethanol in an unfavorable light, we need strong defensible tools & methods to move it back into an uncontroversial position & assured future, not a deepening polarization caused by actions of the ethanol industry itself.

Working with the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of the Renewable Fuels Association, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner recently released a comprehensive survey on voter attitudes toward ethanol. This survey conformed to all scientific and industry standards of public opinion research.

As someone who worked directly on this survey—and someone with 20 years of experience in public opinion research—allow me to speak to the veracity of this research. This survey involved a total sample of 1,200 likely voters, including oversamples of opinion-leaders (college educated or better, self-ascribed interest in public policy, consumers of national news) and environmentalists (contributors to environmental or conservation groups). These results were then weighted to known demographic variables in the American electorate, based on a data base of over 200 national surveys and the American Community Survey (Census). This way the result of the survey was not biased by the oversampling.

The sample employed a random digit dial (RDD) technique in generating numbers to avoid any biases inherent in voter or consumer lists. This gives everyone with a land-line phone an equal opportunity to take part in the survey and remains, the gold standard of statistical sampling.

Additionally, the language used to explore voters’ reactions took great pains to avoid bias. This is, obviously, a qualitative judgment, but before the survey was launched, the Renewable Fuels Association commissioned a handful of questions on a national omnibus survey. Although these two surveys used dramatically different language in measuring voters support for ethanol, the results differed by only a point or two.

(May 29-June 2, 2008, Omnibus Survey) In 2007 Congress required the oil industry starting in 2008 to blend in 9.0 billion gallons of American produced ethanol into the nation’s fuel supply and 36 billion gallons by 2022 with 21 billion gallons from wood chips and grasses. This law is called the renewable fuel standard. Generally speaking, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose this requirement?

Total
Likely Voters

Favor 61
Oppose 31
Favor-Oppose +30

(June 23-July 1, GQR-POS survey) Do you favor or oppose continuing to increase the use of ethanol, a renewable source of energy, in our nation’s fuel supply?

Total
Likely Voters

Favor 59
Oppose 30
Favor-Oppose +29

This similarity in outcomes suggests stability of the data set and speaks to the accuracy of both surveys.

Sincerely

David Walker
Senior Associate
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner