2006 - A look back at the year energy and the environment broke through
04/24/08
On November 7, 2006, all across America, at every level of government, clean energy and pro-environment candidates won. And many of them won with help from conservation groups which ran one of the largest grassroots organizing efforts outside the labor movement in a modern election. The results made history.
Environmental groups including League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and Clean Water Action demonstrated unprecedented political muscle and succeeded in electing a significantly greener U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and many pro-environment governors.
In 2006, Americans voted for change and new leadership that is helping to move our nation in a dramatically different direction. During the election, energy surfaced as a defining issue and a deciding factor that helped fuel the demand for change.
Independent voters were the biggest factor in making 2006 an election about change. An election-day poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found that Independents favored Democrats by 18 points in 2006, and that energy was the #1 issue for those voters. Other key swing demographics, including voters under 30, Hispanic voters, and late deciders all cited energy as their top issue.
Candidates from both parties and every region embraced environmental issues – sample quotes from campaign ads in the 2006 election:
"This windmill farm will make America less dependent of foreign oil."
-- Senator Maria Cantwell, D-WA
“I'm working with environmental groups ... to increase mileage standards, encourage conservation and promote alternative fuels.”
-- Congressman Christopher Shays, R-CT
“Our initiative involves expanding the use of renewable and alternative energy. We can create good paying jobs.”
-- Governor Ted Strickland, D-OH
“That’s why Brian Schweitzer and I increased renewables: to make America more energy independent and to create jobs here.”
-- Senator Jon Tester, D-MT
"We need to redeploy our troops out of Iraq and be independent of foreign oil and we need to develop alternative sources of energy to create jobs and make America more secure."
-- Congressman Ed Perlmutter, D-CO
“It’s not right when big oil companies write energy laws and gas prices skyrocket.”
-- Heath Shuler, North Carolina Democrat for Congress
Along with the messages from the candidates themselves, conservation groups targeted dozens of House and Senate races around the country with grassroots efforts, paid media and endorsements to raise the profile of energy and environmental issues even higher.
The Case Study—Richard Pombo
The campaign to defeat Rep. Richard Pombo in 2006 became the most significant electoral victory the environmental movement had seen in decades and the best example of what can happen when the conservation community works together to choose its targets. For the first time in a decade, a committee chairman, Representative Richard Pombo, who headed the House Resources Committee, went down to defeat.
In an effort begun by Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and joined by Clean Water Action, Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and the California League of Conservation Voters, the groups assembled what was the most cooperative electoral effort ever run by the environmental movement.
The campaign started in October 2005 and never let up, encouraging Pombo's constituents to ask him tough questions about his extreme anti-environmental record and his close ties to special interests. In the closing weeks of the campaign the groups kept up the pressure and led an extensive grassroots campaign of volunteers from conservation and animal welfare groups.
The groups provided more than 300 volunteers who knocked on thousands of doors, created material for Get-Out-The-Vote efforts, ran phone banks, and operated sophisticated research, earned and paid media programs to highlight Pombo's close ties with Big Oil and other local and national environmental problems.
At a press conference the day after losing the election, Pombo declared, “This [defeat] didn’t start with the general election — this started a year and a half ago.” One prominent Democratic consultant said, “How much credit does the environmental community deserve? All of it.”
Given the make-up of the district’s electorate, and early predictions that he was practically unbeatable, Pombo’s defeat demonstrated that the American people want an environmental policy that protects our natural heritage for future generations, not one that gives priority to promoting the interests of big campaign contributors.
This race serves notice to our elected officials: extreme anti-environmental positions are an extreme liability on the campaign trail.
Going forward
The 2006 coalition has been joined in 2008 by Environment America and other organizations in a new effort to elect a filibuster proof 60-vote pro-environmental majority in the United States Senate. The new coalition will bring significant resources to the table to help elect Tom Udall of New Mexico, Mark Udall of Colorado, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.
