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.
Feinstein has taken a long list of environmental issue, dressed a solution to look like a bipartisan compromise, and watched it fail. This includes the compromise that she negotiated on the Headlands Redwoods Forest which benefited family friend Charles Hurwitz and allowed him to defraud the people of California of $ Millions. Now, we have her acting on behalf of another family friend, Stewart Resnick, who is also becoming rich at the expense of the tax payers of California, positioning himself and his Water Bank to cash in.
NOTE to self: Start a campaign to change State / Fed law so that anyone, or any corporation, securing subsidized water for agriculture must return any profits made on the sale to that water to the State or Federal Government. Taxpayers take the risk. Taxpayers should get the profits.
Feinstein can not even get the story straight. She talks of job loss in the San Joaquin Valley, but the LA Times unmasks that fiction. In her latest releases, she tries to draw a parallel between the situation in CA and that in NM earlier in this decade century. However, John Fleck, who lived those events in NM, points out that DiFi is re-writing history. A Feinstein press release is beginning to read like the script to a Sean Hannity segment on Fox.
One of the implications for Sen. Boxer is whether the Sr. Senator from CA is going to get enough environmental votes upset that it will carry over to Boxers 2010 campaign or will she have to separate herself from Feinstein. I don’t think that even top scorecard from CLCV will be enough to rescue Feinstein’s reputation.
…you should note that CLCV took issue with Dan Bacher’s characterization of their stance on Feinstein here at Calitics:
In short, your beef is with the national LCV, not CLCV. Or maybe it’s with both, but you should be clear about this, and clear about why CLCV is a relevant target in this instance. Based on Dan’s post, CLCV’s response, and now your post, I am not convinced they are a relevant target at all.
Some folks can never resist picking a fight, even if they have to do it with organizations who are fighting the same enemy. CLCV has spent four decades electing environmental champions, defending environmental laws, fighting corporate polluters and their elected allies, and holding lawmakers accountable.
To back up: Yesterday, the national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) announced the results of their 2009 National Environmental Scorecard.
Each year, CLCV (the California League of Conservation Voters), like state leagues around the country, helps LCV release their Scorecard to the public in our state in order to raise awareness about the national Scorecard and the performance of the California delegation.
Both Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, along with nearly two-dozen members of the House, received a 100% score from LCV on legislation considered a high priority by the national League. These scores and the pro-environment, pro-clean energy votes they represent are worthy of recognition. (In contrast, several members of the House received a score of zero for voting against the environment every time.)
Wes and Dan, our praise for the 100%-scorers does not mean that CLCV agrees with every action taken by each member of the delegation either before or after the 2009 votes recorded in the LCV’s annual Scorecard. I think you both know that. It would seem you are intentionally trying to confuse people in order to push your own respective agendas.
To clarify, CLCV does not score members of the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives on their environmental votes. The national LCV decides what bills will be scored and publishes their annual national Scorecard documenting those votes.
CLCV uses the results of the LCV Scorecard, along with additional information like previous and/or more recent activities of legislators, to make endorsements of candidates for federal office. For example, we are supporting environmental champion Senator Barbara Boxer in her 2010 reelection, which is likely to be a close race.
Wes, environmental voters are not going to be “confused” about Senator Boxer’s performance based on another legislator’s actions, as you seem to suggest, and turn their support over to, for example, Senate candidate and state Assembly member Chuck DeVore (who scored an abysmal 5% on CLCV’s 2009 California Scorecard). Your suggestion seriously underestimates the intelligence of California’s environmentalists and all voters.
To further clarify, CLCV’s own annual California Environmental Scorecard (the most recent of which is available at http://www.ecovote.org/scoreca… records the votes of the governor and members of the state Assembly and Senate on priority statewide legislation that impacts the quality of the environment and public health in California.
For nearly 40 years, CLCV has used our annual California Environmental Scorecard as an important tool to hold California’s state lawmakers and governor accountable for their environmental votes, and to make endorsements in state legislative and governor’s races. If you look at our past Scorecards, you will see terrible scores for many Democrats along with Republicans. A terrible vote on the environment is a terrible vote, regardless of party affiliation.
As it has been for nearly 40 years, CLCV’s mission is to elect environmental champions, regardless of party, who will stand up to powerful interests in defense of the environment. I urge Calitics readers to learn more about CLCV’s work on behalf of the environment, including our campaign to elect a pro-environment governor in 2010, by visiting our Web site at http://www.ecovote.org.
Sincerely,
Jenesse Miller
Communications Director
California League of Conservation Voters
Jenesse
You are dancing around the key point of my article – that for anybody to give Feinstein a “perfect” environmental score at this time flies in the face of political reality. It doesn’t really matter whether LCV or CLCV developed the scorecard!
For Chabot and CLCV to praise Feinstein when she has taken a series of aggressive actions over the past two years that will seal the doom of California fish populations boggles the mind. It is insulting to all of the members of the environmental, fishing and tribal groups who have worked so resolutely against the peripheral canal and Feinstein’s amendment to increase Delta pumping to corporate agribusiness to praise Feinstein for being an “environmentalist.”
And your point about CLCV supporting the water policy legislation but not the water bond may be technically accurate, but very deceptive. The water policy/water bond legislation was pushed through the Legislature as a package. The water policy bill creates a Delta Stewardship Council. Four out of seven of its members will be picked by Schwarzenegger – and Schwarzenegger will definitely appoint pro canal members. You support for the water policy bill translates into support for the peripheral canal, whether you are willing to admit it.
As Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance said so succinctly, “praising Dianne Feinstein for being an environmentalist is like praising Genghis Khan for being a peacemaker.”
“I haven’t spent hours fact-checking each bullet point, but at a glance it provides more of a look at the Senator’s record than your limited focus.”
Wow, it’s very clear that you haven’t spent ANY time fact checking this list.
First, these are bullet points for actions taken over the past two decades. I thought the purpose of the scorecard was to score her record for 2009?
Second, the first bullet point that is listed as an environmental accomplishment of Feinstein’s is very revealing. She is praised for:
“Convening the discussions that resulted in the 1994 Bay-Delta Accord, which established three goals: developing water quality standards to protect the estuary; coordinating operations of state and federal water projects, and developing a long-term solution for the Delta.”
Do you have any clue what is the result of the water policies implemented by the 1994 Bay-Delta Accord? Look at 2010!
• Salmon populations have declined to the lowest levels in history, due to record pumping of water to corporate agribusiness and Southern Californian and declining water quality that was authorized under the accord. The Central Valley fall Chinook salmon run collapsed to 39,500 in 2009, a new record low.
• Salmon fishing has been closed on the ocean for two years and the season is almost certain to be closed this year. The Central Valley rivers were also closed, with the exception of a brief six week season on a small stretch of the Sacramento River. The result is 23,000 jobs lost to the California and Oregon economy.
• Delta smelt, longfin smelt, American shad, striped bass, threadfin shad and other species have declined to record low levels, due to the record Delta water pumping that was authorized by the accord.
Feinstein, the Department of Interior and then Governor Pete Wilson, by engineering this accord that enshrined the co-equal goals of ecosystem “restoration” and water supply, set in motion the policies that have resulted in the current ecosystem crash.
In addition, the accord’s organizers invited a few select environmental NGO’s to participate in the water deal and completely excluded California Indian Tribes, commercial fishermen, recreational anglers, Delta farmers and environmental justice communities from the process. This was environmentally injust and racist, in my opinion. You can’t reach any just solution to California’s water problems when you exclude the folks most directly impacted by water policies.
Feinstein and groups that so adamantly support her like CLCV and LCV are in fact green washing her abysmal record regarding California water when the first bullet point cited as proving her “committment” to the environment is something that she should be ashamed of.
In summary: the 1994 Bay-Delta Accord set in motion the Delta’s destruction.
How can you possibly justify Feinstein’s support of the horribly failed Cal-Fed process that put the Delta ecosystem and Central Valley fisheries in jeopardy as a result of the convening of the Bay-Delta Accord?
I really hope Jenesse returns and responds to the rebuttals of her posts. I’m quite interested in seeing what she would say.
I wrote a letter to the CLCV expressing my disappointment with their latest blockage of the Greens on their GreenGov2010 website, it’s on my blog along with a political philosophy piece on why the inclusion of third parties in the political forum is critical for the evolution of our society. I’d be interested to receive some feedback or additional points I may have missed in this essay of sorts, if anyone has the time.