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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Poll: Young Members of "Red Party" Think Green

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Monday, September 26, 2016   

RALEIGH, N.C. – Young conservatives overwhelmingly believe manmade climate change is a real problem, a new poll finds. And these GOP voters strongly favor renewable energy.

The national survey of 1,000 Republicans, ages 18 to 35, was commissioned by Young Conservatives for Energy Reform. Four out of five polled said they thought the climate is changing, and two-thirds said they believed it was partially or entirely due to human activity.

Group founder, Michele Combs, said these voters put as much importance on climate change as they did abortion or gay marriage a few years ago.

"The young Republicans embrace this issue,” Combs said. "They see this issue as a core value issue that maybe in the 90s would have been the life issue or the marriage issue. They put this issue in that same category."

The GOP’s platform argued that environmental regulations are slowing growth. But the poll found young conservatives viewed the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental groups slightly more favorably than the coal or nuclear industries.

According to the Department of Energy, clean energy is booming in several historically conservative states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa.

The poll found young conservative voters favored decentralized, market-based solutions, with the renewable-energy industry receiving the most support of any in the survey. Combs' group hosted a clean-energy meeting in Washington late last week, and she said the support for their position has grown quickly since the organization was founded.

"Eight years ago, if you'd have told me we'd have brought over 500 young Republicans, young conservatives, to a clean-energy summit, I'd have been like, 'You're crazy. Who are you even going to get there, you know?’” Combs said. "And now, we're there from all around the country."

GOP nominee Donald Trump has said that climate change is a hoax. Combs said she feels Trump is smart enough to eventually see it as a legitimate threat. And in the meantime, the group is putting its energy toward the future rather than this year's race.

"I think this is the future of the party,” she said. "The presidential campaign is not what we're focusing on. We're focusing on the grassroots."

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated that North Carolina's offshore wind potential is higher than any other East Coast state.





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