Date of Award


Document Type


Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)


Political Science

First Advisor

T. Wayne Parent


This research project is designed to explore the field of voting on environmental issues in the House of Representatives. A variety of factors are considered in determining why representatives vote as they do; among those factors are party identification, ideology, gender, and region of the country. Special attention is devoted to the difference between those environmental issues in which private property rights are involved and those in which property rights are not at issue. The research project consists of four case studies, each one of an environmental issue. Each case study describes the issue and explains why it is pertinent to this research. Each case study also includes an extensive review of the relevant history of the issue and how it made its way onto the public agenda. Each case study leads to a contested vote in the House of Representatives. Each vote is subjected to multiple regression analysis to determine the statistical significance of the variables. The findings are that the only variable that is consistently significant over all four issues is ideology. Each of the others is significant at some point, but none is consistently so. This is especially relevant when ideology is compared to party identification. Ideology is more consistently and more strongly significant in determining voting on environmental issues than party identification.