Environment Colorado Applauds Colorado’s Congressional Champs

Environment Colorado

According to Environment Colorado’s annual Congressional scorecard, released today, Representatives Mark Udall, Diana DeGette, and Ed Perlmutter, are true environmental champions, voting for the environment 100% of the time in the 110th Congress. In addition, Senator Salazar was a clear leader in the Senate.

“While this report makes it clear that we have some environmental champions, we also have our share of natural disasters, representatives who refuse to listen to what Coloradans care about,” said Keith Hay, Energy Advocate at Environment Colorado. “These scorecards are an important tool to educate the public about the voting records of their elected officials and to honor public officials that have a record of putting the environment first.”

Environment Colorado is distributing the individual Congressional scorecards to tens of thousands households as part of its door-to-door campaign to pass legislation that would protect 1.6 million acres of Colorado’s last wild land.

“Congressmen Udall and Perlmutter and Congresswoman DeGette have again and again put the environment ahead of special interests.  In the 110th Congress they joined together to fight successfully to make polluters pay to clean up contaminated groundwater, protect wild places from oil drilling, and defend protections for endangered species like the polar bear and the recently recovered bald eagle” said Hay

In addition to tracking such key environmental votes as protecting the purity of our air and water; reducing global warming pollution; promoting alternative energy use; and increasing mileage standards for vehicles, the scorecards also list information about campaign contributions, biographical data, past Environment Colorado scores, and telephone numbers for citizens to contact their elected officials.

“We applaud Representatives DeGette, Perlmutter, and Udall for being heroes for the environment.  That Colorado has three environmental champions in the House and a Senator leading on environmental issues shows that they are listening to what Coloradans care about.

With the help of Congressmen Perlmutter and Udall and Congresswoman DeGette, the 110th Congress is making progress in several key areas.  Already, the House of Representatives has voted to cut billions of dollars in subsidies to big oil. Senator Salazar voted to raise gas mileage standards, which will save money for Colorado drivers, for the first time in over 20 years.

“While some members of Colorado’s congressional delegation have shown leadership on stopping global warming pollution and moving America towards a cleaner energy future, some members have been true natural disasters. We urge Representatives Musgrave and Lamborn to join with our state’s champions in moving the new energy economy forward,” concluded Hay.

The scorecard and key to the votes scored within can be viewed online at http://www.environmentcolorado.org/.