League of Conservation Voters Makes Traditional Misleading Attack on Republicans; Promotes Democratic Party Candidates, by Tom Randall

BACKGROUND: The League of Conservation Voters has once again issued its environmental scorecard and list of “dirty dozen” candidates targeted for defeat in the November 5 election. As usual, the scorecard’s selection of issues and phraseology seems designed to promote Democrats and denigrate Republicans.

TEN SECOND RESPONSE: The LCV’s interest appears to be political power.

THIRTY SECOND RESPONSE: Candidates should be proud to score low on LCV’s environmental scorecard. The LCV’s extreme agenda is harmful to the American people, particularly working Americans, children, families, minorities and the disadvantaged, and seniors on low fixed incomes. The LCV’s positions cost American jobs, deny affordable housing – particularly to minorities and the poor – and make America more dependent on foreign energy.

DISCUSSION: “The 2002 national environmental scorecard is a great tool for voters to gauge which candidates are on their side when it comes to clean air, safe water and open spaces, and which are not,” LCV president, Deb Callahan told the Environment News Service.

To get a high LVC rating, a candidate would have had to vote:

  • Against liability insurance for the nation’s nuclear power plants, reducing our already overburdened energy supply and dramatically raising electricity prices nationwide.

  • Against opening the Yucca Mountain repository for spent nuclear fuel, leaving it more vulnerable near communities at over 90 locations around the country.

  • In favor of arbitrary automobile fuel economy standards that the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has proven would cost hundreds of thousands of lives by requiring lighter-weight vehicles, without reducing fuel consumption.

  • Against making the country more energy independent and creating jobs through environmentally-safe oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

  • In favor of allowing release, under the Freedom of Information Act, critical infrastructure information voluntarily submitted to the proposed Department of Homeland Security. This information can include data on where dangerous chemicals are stored, the quantities, how to release them into the environment and how many people would be killed and injured as a result: a virtual roadmap for future terrorist attacks on our country.

  • Against allowing our military the training it needs to adequately protect our country because of perceived harm to various species of animals.

  • In favor of restricting the right of many farmers to use their land, forcing them out of business and making them “willing sellers” to the federal government and environmental groups.

A sure sign of LCV’s bias is that while one Senate candidate, John Sununu, New Hampshire Republican, made the so-called “dirty dozen” list with a rating of 36 on the environmental scorecard, nine Democrat House candidates with as low or lower score – Cramer of Alabama, Dooley of California, John of Louisiana, Shows of Mississippi, Carson of Oklahoma, Tanner of Tennessee, as well as Sandin, Turner and Hall of Texas – were not on the list.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: See Ten Second Response #22802: League of Conservation Voters Scorecard Ignores Important Environmental Votes, But Includes Abortion and Campaign Finance Reform by Christopher Burger (2/02), available at https://nationalcenter.org/TSR22802; Ten Second Response #12802b: League of Conservation Voters Gets It Wrong on Bush Record by Tom Randall (1/02) at https://nationalcenter.org/TSR12802b; Ten Second Response #90601: League of Conservation Voters Urges Members to Contact Senators as ANWR Vote Approaches by Gretchen Randall (9/01) at https://nationalcenter.org/TSR90601.

For a copy of LCV’s National Environmental Scorecard, go to http://www.lcv.org/scorecard/index.asp.

To get a detailed 1996 report on LCV’s left-wing political agenda, see “Environmental Activist: League of Conservation Voters,” at https://nationalcenter.org/dos7113.htm.

For 1995 and 1996 analyses of LCV campaign donation practices showing a correlation between LCV PAC donations and left-wing voting patterns of the recipients, see The National Center’s “Greenbacks for Green Votes” at https://nationalcenter.org/GBGV.html and “Greenbacks for Green Votes 2” at https://nationalcenter.org/green2.html.



The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.