Virginia Republicans Flunk Latest Congressional Conservation Scorecard

The latest Congressional scorecard from the League of Conservation Voters flunks every single Virginia Republican, including House members like Scott Rigell, Rob Wittman and Frank Wolf who'll be trying to sell themselves as moderate in November. Committed opponents of clean air & water, public health, and wildlife like Eric Cantor, Randy Forbes, Bob Goodlatte, Morgan Griffith and Robert Hurt all scored in the teens. Meanwhile, Virginia House Democrats Gerry Connolly, Jim Moran and Bobby Scott all scored 100%.

What drew the LCV's ire? Every single Republican voted for the House Republican budget resolution to gut the Clean Air Act & Clean Water Act, to protect billions in tax giveaways for oil corporations that banked $137 billion in profits in 2011, and to weaken offshore drilling safety rules even as they pushed to bring oil drilling to the Virginia coast. 

On the Senate side, both Sen. Mark Warner and Jim Webb scored 100%, though given that both support oil drilling off Virginia's shores and Webb has opposed clean air regulations, neither is perfect on conservation.

Here's the Virginia House scorecard:

Will Rep. Wolf Side With Tea Party or With Children's Lungs?

Just got this email from a local conservationist:

Right now there is a bill in the House of Representatives to stop that rule from moving forward: the “Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN) Act” (H.R. 2401). The bill blocks and indefinitely delays two of the most important clean air regulations of the past few decades – including the mercury and air toxics standards that we all advocated so hard for.

Based on our outreach here in DC, we believe that Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA 10) is yet undedicated on whether he’ll vote “party-line” in support of this bill, or stand up for public health and wildlife and oppose the TRAIN Act.

Which way will Rep. Wolf vote today? If you live in Virginia's 10th Congressional district, please call Rep. Wolf's DC office at 202-225-5136 right now. If you can't get through to Rep. Wolf's DC office, call his Herndon office at 800-945-9653 or his Winchester office at 800-850-3463.

Frank Wolf: Fraud Peacock

Rep. Frank Wolf wants you to think he's taking a bold stand against fraud, loudly squawking for an independent auditor on the 2nd phase of the Metro to Dulles project, estimated to cost as much as $4 billion:

Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), whose district encompasses much of the route for the new Metrorail extension into Loudoun County, is requesting that the agency overseeing construction of the line bring in an outside auditor to monitor design and construction of the second phase of the project.

The project, of course, hasn't even begun taking bids yet. But reality has never stopped Rep. Wolf from trying to get attention! Why wait until the project has actually begun to issue ominous warnings about waste, fraud & abuse to divert attention from the fact that you're holding up tax cuts for everyone to get even bigger tax cuts for your wealthiest donors? Caw!

Strangely, I haven't heard the fraud peacock squawk about this billion-dollar transportation expenditure:

By the end of the December, the Virginia Department of Transportation will have advertised $1.1 billion in construction and maintenance projects since the fiscal year began on July 1, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) told the Dulles Area Transportation Association at a luncheon Monday. About $500 million of that figure will be advertised just this month.

Why no dire warnings from Rep. Wolf about waste, fraud & abuse on this project? Oh, right. Because this project is supported by Virginia's Republican governor. And Frank the fraud peacock is partisan above all else, only getting his feathers up about Democrats - never members of his own party.

Rep. Perriello Evokes Dr. King

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one it is right."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

That was today's quote in my Living Green Page-a-Day calendar. Funny coincidence since it reminded me of something I'd just read this morning. It was Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) talking about his vote in favor of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act:

“If I have to choose between national security and reelection, for me that’s easy. It’s national security,” he told POLITICO. “I can deal with losing reelection. I can’t deal with being a coward.”

So if Virginia Congressmen like Glenn Nye, Rob Wittman and Frank Wolf weren't voting conscience when they voted against ACES, you have to ask -- were they voting cowardice or expediency?

New Global Warming Report Due Today

UPDATE: The report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program is out, you can read it at GlobalChange.gov.

A major new report on the climate crisis is due today. We got some hints at some the current trends and worst-case scenarios from a January draft:

-- climate change is already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems and health, differing from region to region and expected to grow if the climate changes as projected;

-- agriculture is one sector most able to adapt to climate change, but increased temperature, pests, diseases and weather extremes will challenge crops and livestock production;

-- threats to human health will increase, especially those related to heat stress, water-borne diseases, reduced air quality, extreme weather events and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents;

-- sea-level rise and storm surge place many U.S. coastal regions at increasing risk of erosion and flooding, especially along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, Pacific islands and parts of Alaska; energy and transportation infrastructure in coastal cities is very likely to be adversely affected.

The report will put new pressure on Virginia members of Congress like Rob Wittman and Frank Wolf, who've wavered on support for clean energy & climate legislation. How long will they ignore the threats to Virginia's coastline and to Virginians themselves?

Beating an Undead Trojan Horse

The state can't afford it. Arlington doesn't want it. So why does I66 expansion keep moving forward?

The Arlington Civic Federation, by a two-thirds margin, said no again this week to a wider I66. That's after a public hearing at Washington-Lee High School a couple of weeks back at which nearly everyone opposed expansion plans.

Pushed by Rep. Frank Wolf and Rep. Tom Davis, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) wants to make "spot improvements" to the westbound lanes of I66 in three spots in Arlington. "What’s proposed here is a gross waste of money," Arlington County Board Member Chris Zimmerman (D) said. "All you’re doing is moving the bottlenecks around."

Of course, the "spot improvements" are just a trojan horse to fully expand I66 through Arlington to three lanes. And that pesky media, not clued into the charade, keeps giving it away. One story back in October called plans to expand the road finalized. All this public comment is apparently just a charade.

With money for transportation projects so tight, funding for the $75 million "spot improvements" is being pieced together. Meanwhile, the federal government is reluctant to step in to help Metro with its current financing mess. Where are the priorities?

Wolf and Davis claim the widenings will help evacuations of DC in case of emergency. But if I66 is packed for a simple morning rush, how will a few extra stretches of pavement enable tens of thousands of cars to pile on at the same time? After all, even a full lane of highway moving at top speed can only handle something like 1,500 cars an hour.

But what do they care? The evacuation route argument is just another gimmick. The real goal is the same as it was when the road was first proposed in 1956 -- force the road on Arlington, and force Arlingtonians to breathe the pollution of vehicles from making their commutes from sprawling developments in Fairfax County, Loudoun County and beyond.

To learn more about the history of I66 and how to get involved, visit the Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation.

Cross-posted from RK