Monday, May 12, 2008

McSame missed all key environmental votes this Congress.


Wall Street Journal completely omits McCain voting record

"Sen. McCain's support of regulating global-warming gases like carbon dioxide -- the biggest environmental issue before Congress -- more closely resembles the stance of his Democratic rivals, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton [than President Bush], though he disagrees with them on how such regulations should be structured," writes Monday's Wall Street Journal.

"Besides championing legislation to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions," the Journal adds, "Sen. McCain has opposed the administration's call to open parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, citing the refuge as a natural treasure on par with the Florida Everglades and the Grand Canyon in his home state of Arizona."

The Journal paints McCain as a maverick among Republican rank and file on environmental issues, in an article that is best misleading. While McCain has championed legislation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in his speeches, he hasn't voted for it. And while he's opposed drilling in the Arctic, he also refused to support a ban on drilling in a 2005 defense appropriations bill.

The article also fails to mention that McCain ranks last among the 535 members of the current Congress in a rating by the League of Conservation Voters.


McCain has missed every major environmental vote this Congress, according to an analysis by the League. His League lifetime record is just 24 percent. This compares with 86 percent for Obama and 86 percent for Clinton. Obama and Clinton ranked 67 and 73 percent in the League's most recent report.

"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," a release from the Sierra Club noted in February.


"He's certainly better than Bush, and ... the average Republican senator" on environmental matters, but "dramatically worse than the average Republican governor," Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, told the Journal Monday. "Pope said his organization might refrain from endorsing one presidential candidate over another this year because 'there is huge opportunity for all three of them still to grow.'"

Strangely, the Journal used this quote to claim that the Sierra Club's decision not to endorse anyone was instead "a sign of Sen. McCain's potential appeal to environmentally conscious voters."

McCain touts himself as being out the Republican lockstep on the issue of climate change. His record, however, is mixed -- and his current proposals and outspoken stance on climate change don't entirely mesh with his voting record.


No comments: