Tim Walberg nets a five; Camp, McCain a big, fat zero

by: Eric B.

Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 11:19:16 AM EST

The League of Conservation Voters today released their national legislative scorecard, and while Michigan's delegations overall did pretty well, a few things stood out.

The first is that while Joe Knollenberg was named by the League of Conservation Voters to its 2008 Dirty Dozen list, his score isn't actually the lowest of any Michigan Congressman.  Knollenberg, who was named to the list because of his lifetime voting score of 7 percent, managed to more than double that last year, coming in at 20 percent.  What did he support that got him there:  Grasslands preservation, a repeal of oil company subsidies, clean energy, and agricultural subsidies reform.  What did he oppose?  Fighting global warming, a national renewable portfolio standard, increased fuel efficiency, and a bunch of other stuff.  Why?  Well, it could be the nearly $650,000 he's taken from polluting interests.  (The fuel efficiency bit, folks might remember, prompted him to erect a bunch of billboards about how much Arnold Scwarzenegger hates Michigan.)

But, who did worse than Knollenberg?  Oh, some familiar names like Hoekstra, McCotter, Rogers, Walberg, and Camp ... and McCain. (for this, we go below the fold...)

Most of us know Tim Walberg as really a very extremist politician who can't raise money, has split his own party, and is attracting the active support of widely respected Americans like Dick Cheney.  He also managed to score well below the average of Michigan's Congressional delegation on the LCV scorecard and netted a measly five percent.  However, according to the LCV, the issue that he got right of roads in Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

If you've followed the issue closely, you know that the Tim Walbergs of the Republican Party didn't vote against this because it represents poor environmental policy (logging one of the last old forest stands in America), but because it involves subsidizing the construction of roads through the forest that private interests will use to haul out logs for profit.

The position is sound, but if the roads weren't taxpayer subsidized and didn't benefit corporate interests, you have to suspect that Walberg might have changed his vote.  In other words, it's not unreasonable to give him a 5 with an asterisk to suggest that maybe it's really a big, fat goosegg.

Dave Camp, my Congresscritter on the other hand, had no such qualms about taking his zero.  He voted against everything, and it's not surprise that he's got a 7 percent lifetime voting record (same as Joe Knollenberg).  But, when you're elected to primarily represent the interests of Dow Chemical and to give medals to veterans, that's the kind of voting record you can expect. 

Rogers, Hoekstra, and McCotter are also there, clocking in below Knollenberg's 20 percent.

The LCV also rated presidential candidates, and it's not surprising that both Clinton and Obama got roughly the same, high-80s score (Obama recently picked up the endorsement of some mighty prominent environmentalists, mind you).

McCain ... well, he got a zero.

Mind you, McCain has been trumpeted for his environmental positions, mostly because he thinks we need to do something about global warming.  Execution, as they say, is another story; and although McCain got a zero last year mostly because he missed a bunch of votes, his lifetime voting record of 24 percent doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence.