Why, you ask, would the California League of Conservation Voters, the political arm of the environment movement in California, want me to vote for Carly Fiorina? After all, Fiorina has been in the headlines recently doubting the human causes of climate change, advocating offshore oil drilling, taking money from out-of-state coal companies to finance her Senate bid, and flip-flopping on federal cap-and-trade legislation. She would be an outright disaster for California’s environment.
Don’t worry, we at CLCV haven’t lost our minds, or radically altered our mission of electing champions for California’s environment. We’re NOT, we repeat, NOT asking you to vote for Fiorina for Senate. As you probably already know, we, along with several other environmental groups, have endorsed environmental champion, Senator Barbara Boxer, for reelection.
Instead, we’d like you to cast your vote for Fiorina to join the list of some of the worst enemies of the environment running for national office: “The Dirty Dozen.”
The national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) compiles this list each year. Their trademark Dirty Dozen program targets candidates for Congress — regardless of party affiliation — who consistently vote against clean energy and conservation and are running in races in which LCV has a serious chance to affect the outcome. Since 1996, more than 60 percent of the Dirty Dozen have been defeated.
There are already some pretty far-right foes of environmental protection on the 2010 list: Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Representatives Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Michelle Bachmann (R- MN) and former Congressman Steve Pearce (R-NM) are currently on the 2010 Dirty Dozen list. Former Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA) was the first candidate to be defeated of the 2010 Dirty Dozen. Now we’re ready to add another California member to the list: Carly Fiorina.
The polls close on August 26, so please cast your vote for Fiorina to become the next “People’s Choice” for the Dirty Dozen, and tell your friends to vote for her, too… Just this once. Visit LCV’s Web site: http://www.lcv.org/feedback/choice/
Then on November 2nd, in an even more important election, vote to reelect Barbara Boxer to the U.S. Senate. LCV gave Boxer a score of 100% on their most recent (2009) Environmental Scorecard.
Here’s LCV’s description of anti-environment candidate Fiorina on their Web site:
California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina (R-CA) – Failed former Hewlett-Packard CEO, Carly Fiorina, is challenging environmental champion and chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works Barbara Boxer. As Senator McCain’s surrogate during the 2008 Presidential election, Fiorina repeatedly endorsed expanding domestic offshore drilling even though her state of California experienced one of the most destructive U.S. oil spills to date when over 100,000 barrels of oil spilled into the Santa Barbara Channel in 1969. Fiorina even ran a commercial against Senator Boxer’s stance on global warming claiming that Boxer is “worried about the weather.”
