A federation of environmental groups has given Washington’s two U.S. senators and four of the state’s U.S. House members — including Rep. Brian Baird — 100 percent grades on their environmental and energy voting records over the past year and a half.
The annual Congressional Scorecard 2009, produced by Environment America, ranked 40 senators and 144 representatives as “environmental champions” based on their votes on seven Senate bills and 15 House bills.
Besides Baird, Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray and Reps. Jay Inslee, Rick Larsen and Norm Dicks — all Democrats — were singled out for their perfect voting records on the bills.
“These six congressional delegates have consistently voted to put the environment ahead of special interests,” said Cara Dolan of the Seattle-based group Environment Washington, a member of the federation. “In the past year and a half, they successfully fought to invest an unprecedented $80 billion in clean energy and to protect more than 2 million acres of wilderness.”
No member of the Washington delegation was rated a “natural disaster,” a designation bestowed on members of Congress who took an anti-environmental position on every vote the Congressional Scorecard tracked. The report gave that designation to 26 senators and 17 representatives.
In the Senate, two key bills that would have subsidized clean energy and one that would have capped global warming pollution failed in the end because their sponsors failed to round up the 60 votes needed to cut off debate.
Wilderness expanded
In the largest expansion of federal wilderness protection in 15 years, the Senate voted 66-12 in January in favor of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, a package of more than 160 bills that designated 2 million acres of new wilderness in nine states, including Oregon’s Mount Hood National Forest.
The House also approved the wilderness bill, by a vote of 285-140, and in addition passed a bill establishing the Wild Sky Wilderness on 267 square miles of Washington’s Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law in May 2008.
Environment-friendly lawmakers also blocked a bill that would have increased drilling on public lands in the West and opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling; extended tax breaks for developers of renewable energy; renewed funding for Amtrak and intercity rail; funded the cleanup of toxic pollution in the Great Lakes; and passed the “No Child Left Inside Act,” which will offer grants to states to develop environmental education programs.
Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.
