PennEnvironment grades Pennsylvania’s politicians

PennEnvironment released its annual legislative scorecard for both state and federal elected officials this summer as part of the ongoing effort to educate the public and hold elected officials accountable for their environmental votes.

“In order to protect and preserve Pennsylvania’s environment, we need our elected officials voting for the strongest environmental protections possible,” said PennEnvironment Director David Masur.  “These scorecards allow us to detail the environmental voting records of our elected officials.”

Unfortunately, only two of Pennsylvania’s state senators and 13 of the 203 state representatives received an environmental score of 100 percent.

The scorecard included votes on major environmental legislation taken up by the state Legislature, including the funding of Pennsylvania’s conservation programs, promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy, protecting Pennsylvania’s open spaces, and funding public transportation.

PennEnvironment has distributed its environmental scorecards to more than 100,000 households in Pennsylvania. The scorecard and full descriptions of the votes may be found on our Web site at www.PennEnvironment.org/scorecard.

Room for improvement
Statewide, 91 of the 203 members of the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives scored 80 percent or above. Only seven of the 50 members of the state Senate received a score of 80 percent or higher.  Sadly, the average score for the state Senate was 50 percent while the average score for the state House was 61 percent.

PennEnvironment also scored Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation on federal environmental votes. “With the White House catering to polluters over the past eight years, it’s more critical than ever that Pennsylvania’s members of Congress are standing up for the environment,” said Masur.  

“Our scorecard looked at a number of recent votes in the U.S. House and Senate, including a variety of energy issues,  including legislation to preserve our national forests, policies to protect our oceans and legislation to tackle global warming.”

Environmental champs in Washington, D.C.
“PennEnvironment applauds Sen. Casey and Congressmen Altmire, Carney, Sestak and Patrick Murphy among many others for being hard-working environmental champs and receiving a perfect score of 100 percent. They consistently voted to protect Pennsylvania’s environment and the public’s health,” said Masur.

“As Americans suffer from rising electricity and gasoline prices, it’s disappointing that Senator Specter opposed legislation that will ensure that our cars go farther on a gallon of gas, and legislation that will promote clean, renewable energy production in the U.S.,” said Masur.

See the full 2008 PennEnvironment Scorecard to see how your elected officials stand on environmental issues.