McCain gets poor rating from environmental group.
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV), a non-partisan political advocacy organization, recently released its yearly scorecard on congressional voting vis-à-vis the environment. Of particular note were the scores received by the three leading presidential candidates.
Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly received better marks on the scorecard than John McCain for 2007. According to the LCV, there were 15 key environmental votes before the Congress in 2007. McCain missed every one of those votes, thereby receiving a 0 from the LCV. Obama received a score of 67 out of 100 and Clinton received a 73. (The LCV considers a missed vote the same as a vote against an environmental issue.) McCain’s lifetime LCV score is 24%, Obama’s is 86% and Clinton’s is 87%.
McCain’s campaign defended the Senator’s environmental track-record, claiming that the missed votes in 2007 were a result of time constraints related to his running for the presidency. The group Republicans for Environmental Protection also asserted that a review of McCain’s record in its entirety shows that he voted several times against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to prohibit funding of logging roads in the Tongass National Forest and fought to increase fuel efficiency standards for cars, all unpopular positions with the Republican leadership.
We were somewhat surprised to see such an apparently negative voting record on the environment by McCain, as evidenced by the LCV report, given his reputation as a moderate politician. Throughout the final run-up to the election we will be keeping an eye on the candidates to see if additional facts regarding their positions and track-records on the environment become more apparent.
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