In an interview with the LA Weekly, California League of Conservations Voter SoCal director, David Algood, expanded on his organization's decision to back Debra Bowen over her rival Janice Hahn.
"Debra has a much longer record on the environment," said David Allgood, CLCV's Southern California director. "We know her to be a leader that doesn't knuckle under to pressure from special interests."
Allgood said the League had taken note of Hahn's flip-flop-flip on the L.A. oil severance tax. She proposed the tax last fall, before changing her mind and trying to keep it off the ballot. When it went on the ballot anyway, she then supported it. (It narrowly failed.)
"One of the things we considered was the ability of somebody to put their finger in the wind and change positions that quickly," Allgood said. "For her to have one position one day and the opposite position the next -- that was a big concern."
When people think “California League of Conservation Voters” they focus on the words “California” and “conservation.” And rightfully so. First and foremost, CLCV is the political arm of the environment. For nearly four decades, we have worked tirelessly to seek out and endorse environmental champions and then fund and support their campaigns to help them get into office. This has always been a primary part of our mission.
But every now and again we find a candidate who is not only an environmental champion but also demonstrates leadership in another critical piece of our mission: aiding voters. For the special election in Congressional District 36, we’re lucky to have found such a candidate, and it’s none other than Secretary of State Debra Bowen.
Secretary Bowen has a long track record of expertise and leadership on the environment. During her fourteen years serving in both houses of the Legislature, Bowen authored bills to protect our coast and restrict offshore oil drilling. She also co-authored four landmark environmental laws including the first bills in California to ever address global warming, environmental justice, and create a renewable portfolio standard. She also aided Senator Alan Lowenthal with his critical legislation to clean-up pollution in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
At a time when Congress is not only lacking environmental leadership but when the majority has become downright hostile towards any attempt to protect open spaces, improve public health, and protect clean air and water, Bowen will be a needed breath of fresh air in Washington.
In fact, if protecting the environment alone was the only reason to send Secretary Bowen to Washington, it would be enough. But electing her to Congress would also add an incredibly important leader in the field of fair elections and open government. While her environmental work has been notable, Secretary Bowen’s single most important piece of legislation was arguably AB 1462, the landmark law that made all of California’s bill information available on the Internet. A voter can easily find out how his or her legislator voted on any piece of legislation because of this bill, so if you’re following any piece of legislation online as it works its way through the California Legislature at the Senate and Assembly websites, you have Debra Bowen to thank for it.
Secretary Bowen also has a record of holding corporations accountable. Bowen was chair of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee during the height of the infamous Enron scandal. She was one of the lawmakers leading the charge against Kenneth Lay and Enron and investigating their manipulation of the energy market. Only too recently, Massey Energy and BP ignored safety violations that caused unparalleled environmental disasters and cost lives. We need a legislator who is smart, full of integrity, and has a track record of standing up against corrupt and powerful polluters and hold them accountable. We have such a leader in Debra Bowen.
The California League of Conservation Voters has once again proven itself to be the mouthpiece for Demcoratic Incumbents. A more appropriate name for this organization might be the Conservation League of Democratic Party.
Nothing underscores this more than the manner in which they have lauded Sen. Feinstein with her 100% score, as pointed out by Dan Bacher.
Just as Tom Campbell announced he was dropping out of the California governor's race to run for the United States Senate, one of the two remaining Republican candidates in the race ramped up his attack on California's Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32).
Steve Poizner-not to be outdone by fellow candidate Meg Whitman's announcement in fall 2009 that she would suspend AB 32 on her first day in office as governor-put out a press release this week announcing his support for the so-called "jobs" initiative" (actually an outright attack on AB 32) that will appear on the California ballot in November 2010 if anti-environmental forces can gather enough signatures for it to qualify.
Poizner's and Whitman's attacks on California's landmark global warming law have earned them unflattering nicknames from Calbuzz: "Smokestack Steve" and "Monoxide Meg."
It is increasingly clear that Californians who care about our state's natural beauty and the health of our communities must mobilize to "Build a Greener Governor" (http://www.greengov2010.org/) before the candidates, including the undeclared Democratic candidate Jerry Brown, take this race to the bottom on the environment any further.
This anti-AB 32 initiative is just the latest chapter in a sustained and coordinated effort to roll back the progress the Golden State has made against global warming and greenhouse gas emissions that threaten our health, our economy and our planet.
The California League of Conservation Voters has a GreenGov web site with a faux online poll about who would be the Greenest Governor. Given their choices, Brown, Whitman, Poizner and Campbell, the selection is not hard. But, the real intent of this site is to brand the Democratic Candidate, now only Jerry Brown, as the Green Gov.
I offer Calitics a different poll, one that offers other options. Hint: Jerry Brown (Democrat) and Laura Wells (Green Party) have not officially declared their candidacy.
(Jenesse has done a lot of outreach on this issue for the CA League of Conservation Voters. You can find this story on their blog here. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Dan Walters recently called out several of the "mushroom bills" making their way through the state legislature in the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert, including one to exempt a billionaire developer's football stadium from the environmental impact process:
"A marker of a legislative session's final days is the emergence of legislative language that lobbyists circulate, hoping to get them enacted before opposition can develop.
Known as 'mushroom bills' because of they sprout in darkness, these are measures that probably could not pass through the ordinary process because of their controversial nature... As the final week begins, a number of mushroom bills are floating around the Capitol, including one that the City of Industry wants to exempt its planned football stadium from the usual environmental impact process. It's aimed at short-circuiting opposition to developer Ed Roski Jr.'s stadium plan from nearby cities, which say they will bear the impacts of traffic and other side effects if professional football is played in Industry.
Industry has hired a squad of well-connected lobbyists to pass the stadium measure and also promote its scheme to allow cities to extend soon-to-expire redevelopment projects in return for allowing the state to shift some redevelopment funds to the deficit-ridden state budget."
(I'd like to point out, they're not only called mushroom bills because they grow in darkness, but because they grow in... well, something that stinks.) The LA Times' Garrett Therolf wrote about the L.A. County supervisors opposition to the environmental waivers on the proposed NFL stadium: http://www.latimes.com/news/lo...
The state legislature has gotten an earful from the environmental community about this particular smelly mushroom bill. In a letter sent to leadership last week, several environmental groups, including Sierra Club California, Natural Resources Defense Council, California League of Conservation Voters, and several others signaled their strong opposition to "eleventh-hour schemes to circumvent environmental laws" as the legislative session comes to an end.
In a week where the state legislature is debating a historic water package, they also, completely out of public view, are pushing through a CEQA exemption on a project that, according to one lawsuit, hasn't identified the source of its water supply.
The letter is excerpted below the flip. Let's hope the legislature, which is suffering extraordinary low approval numbers, does the right thing and rejects this mushroom bill.
• The director of Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Steven Chu, is set to be appointed the next Energy Secretary by President Elect Obama. Chu is a longtime academic, having been a professor at Stanford. It's good to see somebody with a background in science, rather than in industry, leading a science-heavy Department.
• Of LA Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley, who was appointed to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, incoming CA League of Conservation Voters says "In summary, Nancy Sutley rocks! [She is] a rare, political/policy expert who really listens to all sides and doesn't need to show off her superior knowledge in group situations."
• Looking for you next hip T-Shirt? Walk right past your local Urban Outfitters. The company pulled a shirt with "I support same sex marriage." It is also owned by a right-wing Republican who gives a bunch o' money to anti-gay legislators like Rick Santorum. I guess it is not true that "Everybody Loves a Bigot Guy."
