Policymakers at all levels, from town councils to the halls of Capitol Hill, emphasize the challenges of small businesses as a key talking point during political debates. But new opinion polling in four states—Illinois, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin—reveals small businesses feel their government officials don’t actually understand their challenges, and they support a wide array of policies to address their needs, some of which might come as a surprise to their elected officials.

Extreme weather events have been front-page news lately, especially with the U.S. experiencing record storms across much of the country and devastating droughts in the West. Research shows small businesses are especially susceptible to financial ruin after an extreme weather event. 

It’s not surprising then that Small Business Majority's polling found nearly 1 in 5 Virginia small business owners had to lay off workers after they were negatively impacted by an extreme weather event.

Small businesses account for a significant share of Virginia’s economy. For every one large business in Virginia, there are 50 small businesses diligently working to reenergize the state’s economy. These entrepreneurs are doing everything they can to hire, grow and move their businesses forward. As part of these efforts, recent scientific opinion polling shows that Virginia’s entrepreneurs want pragmatic, innovative policies that help guide them into a competitive, modern clean energy economy.

Small business owners in Virginia strongly believe the country needs to move toward clean energy and that new energy policies will transform the economy and help them create new jobs. They support comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation currently being discussed in the US Senate. Support for a climate and energy bill from Senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner would be a winner with small business owners back home.

Small Business Majority and Main Street Alliance commissioned opinion surveys of small business owners in 7 states across the country to learn their attitudes toward the clean energy bill being debated in Washington.

The poll showed that among small businesses, there is strong support for the clean energy and climate legislation currently being debated; small businesses believe that moving the country to clean energy is a smart way to restart the economy and help small businesses create jobs. A majority of those polled want their business to be part of a new clean energy economy.