Only
two out of eight members of Colorado's Congressional delegation voted
for the public interest more than 80 percent of the time according to
the annual Congressional Scorecard
for U.S. Senators and Representatives on major public interest issues
released today by CoPIRG. CoPIRG is distributing the individual
Congressional scorecards to over 200,000 homes in Colorado as part of
its door-to-door campaign to shine the spotlight on recent moves to
undermine the nation's key environmental laws and protect our
environment and health.
"Big-moneyed
special interests are spending millions of dollars to pollute the air
we breathe, clear-cut our national forests, open the Arctic Refuge to
oil drilling, and overturn America's key environmental and public
health protections," said Rex Wilmouth of CoPIRG. "These scorecards are
an important tool to educate the public about the voting records of
their elected officials and to help citizens hold those officials
accountable."
In
addition to tracking such diverse public interest votes as protecting
the Arctic Refuge from drilling; passing a strong patients' bill of
rights; and lowering the costs of student loans, the scorecards also
list information about campaign contributions, biographical data, past
CoPIRG scores, and telephone numbers for citizens to contact their
elected officials.
Scores on the CoPIRG Scorecard for the Colorado delegation were:
Sen. Allard 5%
Sen. Campbell 0%
Rep. Degette 100%
Rep. Hefley 15%
Rep. McInnis 15%
Rep. Schaffer 5%
Rep. Tancredo 5%
Rep. Udall 100%
"We
applaud Reps. Degette and Udall for being public interest heroes. They
received scores of 100 percent for consistently voting in the public
interest," said Rex Wilmouth. "We are particularly disappointed in
Sens. Allard and Campbell, who missed many opportunities during the
energy debate to support clean energy over subsidies for polluting
industries. CoPIRG applauds Reps. Degette, Hefley, McInnis, and Udall
for supporting higher fuel efficiency standards for cars.
Nationally,
there were 162 members of the House or Senate scoring 80 percent and
above, of whom 26 scored 100 percent. There were 170 members of either
chamber with scores at 10 percent or below, with 41 members scoring 0
percent. Colorado's average Senate score was 3 percent, below the 40
percent national average. The state's average House score was 40
percent, below the national average of 48 percent.
According
to the scorecard, the 107th Congress has voted on an ongoing series of
anti-environmental and anti-consumer measures. For example, the House
voted to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling; the Senate voted to keep
SUVs and light trucks from getting better gas mileage; the House and
Senate voted to increase "hard money" campaign contributions; and the
Senate voted to continue having taxpayers subsidize liability insurance
for the nuclear power industry.
"We
urge members of Colorado's congressional delegation to make protecting
America's environment a top priority—preserving our last wild forests,
cleaning up polluting power plants, defending the Superfund toxic waste
cleanup program and defending the nation's other environmental and
public health protections passed over the last three decades,"
concluded Wilmouth.
