Multilevel governance poses several challenges for the politics of climate change. On the one hand, the unequal distribution of power and interests can serve as a barrier to implementing coherent policy at a federal level. On the other, these features also enable policy leadership among sub-federal units. In the context of wide variation in climate policy at both national and sub-federal levels in Canada and in the United States, this paper utilizes an original data set to examine public attitudes and perceptions toward climate science and climate change policy in two federal systems. Drawing on national and provincial/ state level data from telephone surveys administered in the United States and in Canada, the paper provides insight into where the public stands on the climate change issue in two of the most carbonintensive federal systems in the world. The paper includes the first directly comparable public opinion data on how Canadians and Americans form their opinions regarding climate matters and provides insight into the preferences of these two populations regarding climate policies at both the national and sub-federal levels. Key findings are examined in the context of growing policy experiments at the sub-federal level in both countries and limited national level progress in the adoption of climate change legislation.

Objectives. In this article we examine the causes of both belief and disbelief in global warming among adult Americans. Methods. We use national-and statelevel telephone surveys to collect data on individual-level beliefs regarding climate change and employ ordered logistical regression to measures the relative effect of various factors on those beliefs. Results. The study finds that U.S. views on climate change are being shaped by a combination of personal observations, meteorological events, and physical changes on the planet. The impact of various factors on one's belief in global warming are significantly determined by partisan affiliation, with Democrats and Republicans responding differently to assorted types of evidence. Conclusion. Beliefs regarding global warming are being shaped by individual experiences and weather phenomenon and the processing of such factors is substantially influenced by a person's partisan leanings.

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The emergence of hydraulic fracturing techniques is generating a dramatic expansion of the development of domestic natural gas resources in the United States and abroad. Fracking also poses a series of environmental protection challenges that cut across traditional medium and program boundaries. Formal constraints on federal government engagement thus far devolve considerable latitude to individual states for policy development. This provides an important test of whether recent scholarly emphasis on highly innovative state environmental and energy policies can be extended to this burgeoning area. Pennsylvania has moved to the epicenter of the fracking revolution, reflecting its vast Marcellus Shale resource and far-reaching 2012 legislation. This article examines the Pennsylvania case and notes that the state's emerging policy appears designed to maximize resource extraction while downplaying environmental considerations. The case analysis generates questions as to whether this experience constitutes an influential state early mover that is likely to diffuse widely or is instead an aberration in a rapidly diversifying state policy development process.

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