The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is the political voice for the national environmental community, and is the only national organization working full time to hold members of Congress accountable for their environmental votes. For each session of Congress, LCV produces the National Environmental Scorecard that assigns a percentage score to each representative and senator based on their votes on the year’s key environmental measures. LCV has published a scorecard for each Congress since 1970. The votes tabulated in the scorecards are based on the consensus recommendation of experts from 25 nonpartisan environmental, conservation and sportsmen’s groups.

The scorecard assigns a percentage score to every representative and senator. A 100 percent score indicates the strongest environmental commitment, while a zero percent shows a consistent voting pattern against conservation and public health protections. LCV is working full-time to monitor administration appointments and actions that affect the environment. Information on LCV’s efforts pertaining to the administration is available over the internet at www.lcv.org.

Washington, DC The nomination of former Senator Spencer Abraham and former Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton to head the departments of Energy and Interior, respectively, is a giant step backwards for environmental protection, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) concluded today.

“We are stunned by President Bush’s appointment of Abraham, a member of LCV’s 2000 Dirty Dozen list, and our number one target for defeat last year,” said LCV President Deb Callahan. “He even co-sponsored a bill to abolish the very department he’s been nominated to lead. In Norton, Bush has nominated someone whose environmental ethic is a throwback to the James Watt era—one of the darkest periods of natural resource exploitation. These appointments don’t reflect the reality that conservatism and conservation shouldn’t be treated as conflicting values.”

Spencer Abraham, who served as a US Senator from Michigan from 1995 to 2000, compiled an abysmal lifetime LCV environmental voting score of 5%—the worst in Michigan and the worst in the Great Lakes region. In the last Congress, Abraham earned a failing score of 0%. LCV named Abraham to its 2000 Dirty Dozen list of anti-environmental congressional candidates, and spent $700,000 in a successful effort to inform voters of his anti-environmental record and ensure defeat. In 1999, Abraham was one of four senators to sponsor a bill to abolish the Energy Department. Also that year, he voted against stronger fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks, and to cut funding for renewable energy programs.

Abraham also supported numerous legislative riders to eliminate Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) role in protecting wetlands, and to prohibit the EPA from regulating arsenic in drinking water. In 1998, he supported a rider to the Fiscal Year 2000 Interior Appropriations Bill that would have legalized unlimited mine waste dumping on public lands. In 2000, Abraham’s re-election campaign accepted more campaign contributions from polluting industries and interests than any other congressional candidate—over $700,000.

Gale Norton is a protégé of James Watt, President Reagan’s controversial Interior Secretary from 1981 to 1983. She worked for Watt while he was president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative organization that strongly supports “takings” legislation, logging and mining on the nation’s public lands. She also served in the Reagan administration, first in the Agriculture Department and then in the Interior Department, where she helped advocate for the Reagan administration’s position on oil drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.

As Colorado Attorney General, Norton was instrumental in creating the state’s “self audit” program, which gives businesses immunity from litigation and fines if they voluntarily report and correct violations of environmental laws. She is also a former co-chair of the Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates (CREA), an industry-funded front group whose members include such anti-environment foes as Representative Chenoweth, and House Resources Committee Chairman Don Young.

“Abraham and Norton’s nominations are terrible news for the majority of Americans who rank protecting the nation’s air, water and national resources among their top priorities,” said LCV President Deb Callahan. “While Bush’s appointment of Christie Todd Whitman to head the Environmental Protection Agency appeared to be a step in the right direction, his choices of Abraham and Norton are signs of environmental regress, not progress.”

To date, Bush has nominated Commerce Secretary Norman Y. Mineta to be Secretary of Transportation. Mineta, a Democratic member of the House from 1975 to 1995, earned a lifetime environmental average of 75 percent. In addition, John Ashcroft has been confirmed to serve as Attorney General. Ashcroft, a former US Senator from Missouri, earned a lifetime LCV environmental rating of five percent for his votes on key environmental legislation from 1995 to 2000. He repeatedly voted against funding for clean air and water and against increased funding for the cleanup of toxic waste sites.

Bush has also named Ann Veneman as his choice for Agriculture Secretary and Donald Evans, Bush campaign chairman and the chairman of an oil company, as Commerce secretary. Both Evans and Veneman will have significant jurisdiction over key environmental policies pertaining to such hot button issues as genetically modified food, trade and environment, and marine and coastal protections.

LCV Calls New House Environmental Committee Chairs Out of Step With Public's Conservation Concerns

Washington DC Probable new environmental committee chairmen are poised to lead environmental policy in the wrong direction, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) announced today. The new leaders of the 107th Congress’ committees with environmental jurisdiction are among the most anti-environment members of Congress according to their performance on LCV’s National Scorecard, and do not reflect the growing public desire for stronger environmental laws.

With an average environmental score for the 106th Congress of 7 percent, the new chairmen rank far below the national average for House members (47 percent). Such poor past performance on important conservation and public health protection issues leaves little room for optimism that environmental progress will be made in these committees.

“The American public has clearly signaled its desire for stronger, better enforced environmental laws—not weaker ones,” said Deb Callahan, LCV president. “We learned valuable lessons from the 2000 congressional elections: smart environmental policy makes smart local politics and bad environmental policy can lead to bad news on election day. Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike benefit from cleaner air, safer water, and open spaces, which could be at risk with the election of these new chairmen.”

The chairmen of key committees and probable chairmen of appropriations subcommittees are:

Jim Hansen (R-Utah)
House Resources Committee
106th Congress LCV score : 10%
Lifetime LCV score: 9%

Billy Tauzin (R-LA)
House Energy and Commerce Committee 106th Congress LCV score: 7%
Lifetime LCV score: 21%

Don Young (R-Alaska)
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
106th Congress LCV score: 7%
Lifetime LCV score: 10%

Joe Skeen (R-NM)
House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee
106th Congress LCV score: 3%
Lifetime LCV score: 7%

Sonny Callahan (R-Ala)
House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee
106th Congress LCV score: 3%
Lifetime LCV score: 7%

Callahan added, “Hostile anti-environmental legislation during the last Congress met with opposition from environmentalists, the public, and the Administration. With the President’s veto threat now questionable and a closely divided Congress, the environmental community will have to be even more vigilant in its efforts to hold these committee chairmen and the rest of Congress accountable to the public for their environmental actions.”

Returning chairmen of House panels with environmental jurisdiction include Larry Combest (R-TX) at the Agriculture Committee, whose 106th Congress LCV score was 7 percent, and James Walsh (R-NY) at the VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee,with a 106th Congress LCV score of 37 percent.

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