How Bad It's Gotten In Political Terms In Just 20 Years

[hatrack]

EDIT

The League of Conservation Voters tallies an annual scorecard of Congressional behavior: The higher the scorer on what the League considers pro-environment legislative votes, the higher the approval number. In the 2019 session, 21 House members pulled a zero score, all Republicans. More than 100 Representatives, all Democrats, scored 95 percent or better.

In the 1989-1990 Congress, fewer than a half-dozen House Republicans, including future House Speaker John Boehner, pulled zeroes. Two Republicans, Sherwood Boehlert of New York and Jim Leach of Iowa, were among the dozen House members who scored 100 percent. It wasn't uncommon for Republicans in the Northeast or Upper Midwest to score well over 50 percent. Only two GOP'ers did so well in 2019. The full numbers paint an overall picture of environmental politics where the two parties have rushed to opposite end of the political spectrum. Environmental advocacy groups came along for the ride, and even the fiercely non-partisan LCV strongly leans by appearance to the Democrats.

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As late as 2007, Gingrich's environmental street cred was solid. The retired Speaker posed, American Gothic-style, in front of the U.S. Capitol with the current Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in a TV ad calling for action on climate change. By 2011, Gingrich plotted a comeback, this time in a presidential run. Like fellow Republicans Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and the late John McCain, he had drifted into climate denial, calling the Pelosi ad "the dumbest single thing I've done."

Like today, 1990 saw a Republican in the White House, the one-term George H. W. Bush. During his 1988 campaign, the elder Bush vowed to be "the environmental President." That never happened, of course, but by current Republican standards, he was a serial tree-hugger. Bush's EPA Administrator, William Reilly, was the former head of the U.S. branch of the World Wildlife Fund. Together, he and Bush pushed strong Clean Air Act amendments. Today, the EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, is a former coal lobbyist tasked with weakening the Act and just about every other environmental law and regulation.

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https://www.dailyclimate.org/earth-day-2020-2645695760.html

[abqtommy]

1. My question is "Will we let the reTHUG ratfucking win the day?" I still have hope that they'll

lose. Bigly...