Enviro Groups Stand Behind Him, But Is Obama Really The “Green” Candidate?

Yesterday the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) announced that it is strongly endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president. LCV is the second major environmental group to endorse Obama, joining the Sierra Club in its support for Senator Obama.

To many this seems an easy choice, but is it really?

Let us turn back the clock to when the Democratic primary season was just getting underway in early 2007. At that time, some environmental groups were not pleased with the prospect of an Obama presidency. In fact, some cheered Obama's decision to leave the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee in March 2007 because of concerns that the senator was backing key coal industry efforts to promote liquefied coal, a move that could make him an unreliable vote on global warming legislation.

In particular, there were concerns with Senator Obama's collaboration with Republican Senator Jim Bunning to promote coal-to-liquid (CTL) fuels. Environmental groups generally oppose CTL fuels due to the high carbon dioxide emissions that result from the fuels’ production. Senators Bunning and Obama reintroduced a bill encouraging CTL fuel development and had also launched a bipartisan CTL fuels caucus. Consequently, some in the environmental movement breathed a big sigh of relief when Senator Obama left the committee.

In the attention-deficit land of politics, however, all of that seems to be forgotten. With Obama now the presumptive Democratic nominee, LCV and other environmental groups are strongly backing him. LCV said in its July 21 statement that Senator Obama's “impressive” 86 percent score in the group's rankings was significantly better than GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's 24 percent score (duh, even I can do that math). The group cited several of Obama's policy positions, including his calls for a 52 mile per gallon automobile fuel efficiency standard, $150 billion federal investment in clean energy technology, a 25 percent renewable portfolio standard for utilities and his backing for a cap-and-trade program to cut global warming pollution by 80 percent. To be sure, these are all fine ideas.

However, American politics are far more complicated than to assume that Democrats are pro-environment and Republicans are pro-business. To my knowledge, no politician has ever publicly said “screw the environment.” And remember that almost every piece of major environmental legislation was signed by a Republican President: Nixon created EPA and signed the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act; Reagan signed sweeping amendments to RCRA, the nation’s hazardous waste law and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act; the first President Bush signed into law the massive Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Ironically, the most maligned piece of environmental legislation -- CERCLA or Superfund -- was signed into law by a departing Jimmy Carter.

Political realities are just that – realities. We can’t assume that any candidate is green, will stay green and will, on his or her own, “do the right thing” every time. We must monitor and apply pressure, regardless of who sites behind that desk in the oval office.