League of Conservation Voters

House and Senate Budget Restore Funding For Key Environmental Programs

In another recent win for the environment and public health, Congress helped to secure approximately $32.8 billion in funding for the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency in next year's budget. 

After several years of declining funding for key environmental protection, Congress this year reversed that trend by adding $2.5 billion for environmental program to the President's request. We applaud the members of Congress who worked to restore funding that the Bush Administration proposed to eliminate.  By securing these funds, there will be more resources for important programs to improve land conservation and protect public health.

Gore Turns Up the Heat on Capitol Hill

Today former Vice President Al Gore testified before Senate and the House committees on our need to take action on global warming.

Gore asked the 535 members of Congress to rise above the daily rigors of partisan politics and meet the major challenge of our time for the sake of our children and grandchildren's future.   He reminded Congress that solving global warming is not a technological problem - we have all the tools we need to get started.  At its heart, global warming is an issue of leadership and vision.

Global warming is a profound challenge, but also provides unparalleled opportunities --  from jump-starting the new energy economy and creating new jobs to bringing us closer to energy independence and improving national security.

Props to Mr. Gore for delivering his message in person to Congress.  At LCV, we'll be working with Congress to pass legislation - like the Boxer-Sanders and Waxman bills - that will help curb global warming to secure a more hopeful future.  And we'll continue to work to elevate the issue of global warming in the 2008 presidential primary process through The Heat Is On project, a partnership project of the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund.

 

- Kristin Lee

League of Conservation Voters Applauds House Bill That Invests in a Clean Energy Future

Here is Gene Karpinski's statement following the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passing H.R. 6, the “CLEAN Energy Act 2007”:      

“We congratulate the House of Representatives for helping to jump start a new energy economy that will combat global warming while creating good paying jobs. 

In the recent elections, the American people voted resoundingly for change -- including a new direction for our nation’s energy policy based not on the dirty energy policies of the past, but on clean energy solutions for our future.  Today, the House of Representatives demonstrated that it heard the American people loud and clear.   

This legislation eliminates $14 billion in giveaways to oil companies already making record profits and starts investing in clean renewable energy and energy efficiency.  The inclusion of the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007 as part of the first 100 Hours agenda sends a clear signal that the new Congress  is serious about creating real changes in our nation’s energy policy. 

By saying no to Big Oil and yes to renewable energy, our country is taking a significant first step toward a clean energy future.”

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Environmental Community Lobbies in Support of House Clean Energy Bill

This morning the environmental community announced an all-out effort to pass H.R. 6, the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007.  After a press conference, environmental advocates fanned out across the Capitol in an attempt to speak with as many members of Congress as possible.  This legislation, part of the Democrats' new 100 hours plan, reduces subsidies for Big Oil and instead reinvests the money in clean renewable energy. 

In November, Americans clearly signaled a need to change the direction of our energy policy, away from polluting energy sources toward clean and innovative technologies that reduce global warming emissions and create jobs. In an era of limited resources, we should be focusing efforts on those technologies that both fight global warming and increase America's energy independence.   

Click here to read the press release.

House to Vote on Offshore Drilling

The U.S. House is expected to vote sometime this week on a bill to open up over 8 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to drilling. This vote comes just weeks after the American people voted resoundingly for change, including new energy supplies - not for the unsustainable energy policies of the past. The Republican leadership is completely ignoring what citizens voted for. The League of Conservation Voters is urging Members of Congress to heed the wishes of the American public by voting against this parting gift to Big Oil companies. The misleadingly-named Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 gifts oil companies the right to drill on eight million new acres of Florida's Gulf Coast. This includes more than six million acres of waters that have been protected for the last 25 years by the bipartisan offshore drilling moratorium. This Act fails to address our energy problems, raids the federal treasury, and threatens our coastal economies and ecosystems with pollution and oil spills. Opening more of our coastlines in such a way does nothing to aleviate our energy concerns, especially given that oil companies currently hold more than 4,000 untapped leases in the Gulf of Mexico and eighty percent of offshore oil and gas resources are already open to drilling. Instead of spoiling our shores and perpetuating our dependence on oil as a source of energy, Congress should pursue faster, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly energy policies, including making cars and trucks go further on a gallon of gasoline and increasing our use of clean, renewable energy such as wind and solar power.

110th Congress To Take Key Action on Energy in First 100 Hours

Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi has made clean energy a key part of the  "Six for '06" agenda that Democrats plan to accomplish within the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress.  We are encouraged that  the "Six for '06" plan includes repealing tax subsidies for Big Oil, and putting that funding toward increasing renewable energy.

In the recent midterm elections, the American people voted for change - including changing our current backwards-looking energy policies.  As Greenberg Quinlan Rosner found in their post-election survey, the energy issue clearly resonated with voters. By taking action on clean energy during the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress, Speaker-Elect Pelosi is helping set this country on track towards a clean energy future.

Major Changes for Senate Environment Committee

Outgoing Environment and Public Works (EPW) Chair Sen. James Inhofe (OK) earned a 2006 LCV Score of 0 percent, with a lifetime score of 5.

Incoming EPW Chair Sen. Barbara Boxer (CA) earned a 2006 LCV score of 100 percent, with a lifetime score of 89.

New leadership in the U.S. Senate will translate into a dramatic shift in policy at the helm of the EPW Committee.  Outgoing Chair Sen. James Inhofe  (OK) routinely put the interests of Big Oil and other polluters ahead of the best interests of our families and our environment.  He pushed for the Bush Administration's radical "Clear Skies" plan to undermine critical public health protections in the Clean Air Act. Sen. Inhofe is perhaps best known for his dogmatic denial of the dangers of global warming, famously calling global warming a "hoax" and this week referring to U.N. climate change talks as "a brainwashing session."

Sen. Boxer has presented a sharply contrasting vision for her tenure as EPW Chair.  Her long history of focusing on children's health and strengthening environmental protections provides a strong foundation for improving public health for all Americans.  Sen. Boxer has championed the Superfund "polluter pays" principle, making polluters clean up their toxic messes.   On the critical issue of global warming, Sen. Boxer backs strong, broad, and mandatory measures to reduce pollution that causes climate change.  Instead of Sen. Inhofe's "hoax," Sen. Boxer views global warming as "the challenge of our generation."

We look forward to Senator Boxer's strong leadership on forward-looking public health and environmental policies in the years to come.   

-Nat Mund

Protecting the Tongass

Yesterday I participated in a press teleconference with Rep. Robert Andrews (NJ) (it’s worth noting that he earned a perfect 100% on LCV’s 2006 Scorecard), John Maret of Audubon Wildlife Society in New Jersey, Erik Lee Nielson, the owner of Alaska Boat and Marine in Juneau, Alaska, and Aurah Landau of the Alaska Coalition. The purpose of the teleconference was to highlight an amendment co-led by Rep. Andrews to end taxpayer subsidies for new commercial logging roads in Alaska's Tongass Rainforest.

Protecting the Tongass -- the world's largest remaining old-growth temperate rainforest -- has long been a priority for the League of Conservation Voters. I've had the privilege to spend time in the Tongass and marvel at the old growth trees and the incredible array of wildlife. It simply does not make sense to spend taxpayer dollars to subsidize private companies to log this precious place.

The Tongass amendment was such a priority for the environmental community that it was one of twelve House votes selected for inclusion in our 2006 National Environmental Scorecard. We strongly urge Congress to include this measure in the spending bill.

House Votes to Weaken Land Use Protections Before Leaving to Campaign

Before leaving town to campaign for reelection, the House of Representatives passed a bill, H.R. 4722, to weaken local land use and environmental laws.  This terrrible will would make it easier for developers to sue state and local governments over these important protections.  By encouraging developers to file costly “takings” litigation against local officials in federal court, H.R. 4722 would make it far more difficult for communities to protect open space and reduce pollution.  The bill would also reduce public participation in local land use decisions by enabling developers, factory farms, and others to bypass local land use procedures. 

On the bright side, Congress left DC over the weekend and won't be passing any additional anti-environmental bills in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned for LCV's release of the 2006 National Environmental Scorecard on October 11.  See www.lcv.org  for info on how your representative and senators voted in 2006 when it came to energy, the environment, and public health.