House Polluter Agenda Results in Tie for Most Scored Votes

**Full Scorecard available here**

WASHINGTON, DC – The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) today released the 2014 National Environmental Scorecard tallying the performance of every member of Congress on the year’s key environmental votes. The Scorecard is available in both English and Spanish at scorecard.lcv.org

“This year’s Scorecard shows that while the world experienced the hottest year on record, the House recklessly trampled our environment, proving themselves nothing more than a carbon copy of their past three years,” said LCV President Gene Karpinski. “In 2014 the House took up a polluters’ wish list attacking virtually every area of conservation, leaving it up to the Senate to play persistent defense for the environment.” 

“Climate change poses a serious threat to our health, environment, economy and our national security, and I am committed to working with my colleagues in the Senate to confront the challenges of climate change head on with forward-looking investments in the job-creating clean energy technologies of the future,” said Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), who took part in this morning’s Scorecard release. “I applaud the efforts of LCV to raise awareness about what’s happening on Capitol Hill and how it affects the air we breathe, the water we drink and lands we all enjoy.”  

The 2014 Scorecard covers votes cast during the second session of the 113th Congress. It includes 35 House votes, which ties the record for the most votes scored in the House and is a result of their relentless assault on everything from clean air and clean energy to endangered species to public lands. Under Speaker Boehner’s leadership, these sweeping attacks on the environment are nothing short of a trend – every year since 2011 the House’s polluter agenda has resulted in record numbers of scored votes.  The average House Republican score for 2014 was 7%, the average House Democrat score was 85%. 

The House’s choice to side with polluters with breathtaking attacks on our air, water, lands, and wildlife were blocked by environmental champions in the Senate, led by Senator Reid. The Senate’s continual concentration on preventing repeated environmental assaults, in part, accounts for the unusually low number of scored Senate votes in the 2014 Scorecard. 

Unfortunately, with the change in Senate leadership, both chambers of the 114th Congress will likely attempt to eviscerate environmental protections, putting Congress at odds with the solutions that Americans desire.  Indeed the very first bill of 2015—to force approval of the dangerous and dirty Keystone XL Pipeline—has given us such a clear picture, including some promising bright spots, of where Senators now stand on the shifting politics of climate change and clean energy that LCV took the unusual step of releasing a Special Edition Scorecard earlier this month.

The good news is that the Obama administration continues to build a historic record on climate change and other environmental priorities. While the House of Representatives attacked the environment last year, President Obama, among many achievements, led international efforts to address climate change, he protected several stunning landscapes as national monuments, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the Clean Power Plan to set national limits on carbon pollution from power plants.  

“Despite the change in Senate leadership, we have a force of environmental champions, including the president, as well as many state governments, who have listened to Americans’ concerns and are intent on pulling us closer and closer to meeting the greatest challenge of our time—climate change,” said Karpinski.

For over 40 years, the National Environmental Scorecard issued by LCV has been the nationally accepted yardstick used to rate members of Congress on environmental, public health, and energy issues. For more information, visit https://scorecard.lcv.org.     

###