John McCain is no friend of the environment. Although he likes to tout his environmental record as positive, he has consistently missed important votes – votes that were considered critical to environmental well-being.
In the 2007 National Environmental Scorecard released by the League of Conservation Voters, John McCain receives a score of ZERO. McCain was the only member of Congress to skip every single crucial environmental vote scored by the organization, posting a score lower than Members of Congress who were out for much of the year due to serious illnesses–and even lower than some who died during the term. By contrast, the average Member of Congress scored a 53 in 2007. McCain posts a lifetime score of only 24.
Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director, had the following to say about McCain:
“We were appalled two weeks ago when John McCain was the only Senator who chose to skip a crucial vote on the future of clean energy in America-dooming the measure to fail by just a single vote. As it turns out, this was merely the most recent example of a clear pattern of missing the most important votes on energy and the environment–as his abysmal LCV score clearly demonstrates.
“McCain missed votes to save his constituents $499 million dollars at the pump and at least $550 million on their energy bills, while creating more than 10,000 new clean energy jobs in his home state.
The following is the League of Conservation Voters 2007 Scorecard Senate votes, all of which John McCain missed:
- Cloture on H.R. 6, the energy bill (6/21, Vote 225)
- Passage of H.R. 6, the energy bill (6/21, Vote 226)
- Maintaining Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) in H.R. 6 (12/7, Vote 416)
- Taking away giveaways to Big Oil to subsidize clean energy (12/13, Vote 425)
- Loosening public health and environmental regulations on refineries (6/13, Vote 210)
- Undermining the RES with coal and nuclear energy (6/14, Vote 211)
- Offshore drilling in Virginia (6/14, Vote 212)
- Liquid coal (6/19, Vote 213)
- Environmental safeguards for biofuels (6/20, 219)
- Consider global warming for water projects (5/15, Vote 166)
- Appropriately prioritizing water projects (5/15, Vote 165)
- International family planning (9/6, Vote 320)
- Farm Bill subsidy reform (12/11, Vote 417)
- Farm Bill subsidy caps (12/13, Vote 424)
- Eminent Domain for public parks (12/3, Vote 429)
No doubt as the campaign heats up, we will see more of McCain’s inconsistencies. The environment deserves protection, and we need a president who will protect that environment. We don’t need someone who blithely skips crucial environmental votes and who will perpetuate the last eight years of the Bush Administration’s head-turning, wink-wink policies when it comes to environmental protection.
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
