Poll: Obama’s energy, environment efforts fall short of expectations

President Obama’s job performance on energy and the environment is falling short of the public’s high expectations when he took office, a new poll finds.

The Gallup poll released Wednesday finds that 52 percent of Americans polled in early March believe Obama is doing a “good job” protecting the environment, while 79 percent expected Obama to do a good job in a poll taken shortly after he took office.

The new poll finds that 43 percent believe Obama is doing a good job improving the nation’s energy policy, compared to 72 percent who expected Obama to do a good job in the earlier survey.

“The declines are understandable, given the high expectations for Obama when he took office and the erosion in his overall job approval rating over the past year,” states Gallup’s summary of the poll. Gallup polled 1,014 adults between March 4-7, and the survey has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percent.

There is a sharp partisan divide on both issues. Seventy percent of Democrats say Obama is doing a good job protecting the environment, compared to 37 percent of Republicans. Meanwhile, 67 percent of Democrats say Obama is doing a good job improving energy policy, compared to 24 percent of Republicans polled.