Dirty Dozen 2012

Senate : Montana

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
5/17/12

WASHINGTON – Today, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) named Montana Senate candidate Rep. Dennis Rehberg to its 2012 “Dirty Dozen” list. LCV's 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.

“Dennis Rehberg has repeatedly sided with corporate polluters over Montana’s hunters and fishermen, working to undermine critical clean air and water protections and put large swaths of Montana’s world-class wild lands and open space at risk,” said Navin Nayak, Senior Vice President of Campaigns.

LCV plans to make the Montana Senate race a top priority this cycle. LCV has already reported $170,000 in expenditures on a door-to-door campaign in Billings, Missoula, Helena and Bozeman to get pro-conservation voters to vote by mail for Sen. John Tester. Additionally, LCV Action Fund has already raised more than $96,000 for Tester via its GiveGreen website. In 2006, LCV named Sen. Conrad Burns to the “Dirty Dozen” and spent nearly $400,000 to defeat him.

“Dennis Rehberg's outright disdain for Montana's public lands mean he's out of step with voters,” said Theresa Keaveny, Executive Director of Montana Conservation Voters. “He's co-sponsoring a bill to cede control of public lands 100 miles south of the border, including Glacier National Park, to the Department of Homeland Security. That's the kind of information our campaign is sharing with concerned voters.”

Rehberg’s anti-conservation record:

• Rehberg has earned an abysmal 6% LCV lifetime score during his time in the House. [LCV National Environmental Scorecard]
• Over the course of his political career, Rehberg has taken $539,407 from the oil and gas industry, making him one of the top-30 recipients of oil and gas money to serve in the House of Representatives.  [Center for Responsive Politics; Center for Responsive Politics]
• Rehberg co-sponsored legislation which would allow 60 million acres of public lands to lose protection from oil and gas drilling, unchecked development and other threats, including 6 million acres of public land in Montana that is used for hunting, fishing and hiking. [HR1581; The Wilderness Society, 7/29/11; Missoula Independent, 9/22/11; Flathead Beacon, 9/28/11]
• Rehberg co-sponsored a bill that would grant the Department of Homeland Security unprecedented power to ignore 36 environmental laws in a 100 mile zone of federal land, including the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and Endangered Species Act.  The impacted public lands would include Montana’s own Glacier National Park. [HR1505; McClatchy, 10/25/11; UPI, 9/27/11]
• Rehberg voted to block the EPA from enforcing regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and mercury pollution. [HR1, House Vote 96, 2/18/11; HR 2681, House Vote 764, 10/6/11; HR2250, House Vote 791, 10/13/11; HR1,House Vote 86, 2/17/11]

Since 1996, 60 percent of the “Dirty Dozen” have been defeated. LCV has previously named Virginia Senate candidate George Allen, New Mexico Senate candidate Heather Wilson and Rep. Tim Holden to its 2012 “Dirty Dozen.” Rep. Holden was defeated last month in the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 17th congressional district.

# # #

Paid for by the League of Conservation Voters, www.lcv.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.