League of Conservation Voters names Toomey to "Dirty Dozen"

WASHINGTON – Today, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), which works to turn environmental values into national priorities, named former Club for Growth President and Pennsylvania Senate candidate Pat Toomey to its 2010 "Dirty Dozen" list. Coinciding with the announcement, LCV is launching an online campaign that includes a web video and targeted online advertising, alerting Pennsylvania voters to Toomey’s campaign cash from Big Oil and his dangerous support for oil and gas drilling in Lake Erie, even in the wake of the Gulf Coast catastrophe and the record-breaking Midwest oil spill in the Kalamazoo River. View the web ad here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A93zPtaVY0Y

“Be it as a member of Congress or president of the Club for Growth, Pat Toomey has made clear that he walks lockstep with Big Oil and other corporate polluters while opposing new energy policies that would set America on the path to a clean energy future,” said Tony Massaro, Senior Vice President for Political Affairs at the League of Conservation Voters. “From drilling for oil in the Great Lakes to opposing legislation that creates clean energy jobs, his extreme views on energy policy put him far outside the mainstream and easily earn him a spot on the Dirty Dozen.”

Toomey’s Big Oil record:

• Toomey’s lifetime LCV environmental score is an abysmal 11%. In 2003 and 2004, his last two years in office, he received a 0% score after voting against every major piece of clean energy and environmental legislation.[1]

• As a Congressman, Toomey voted against repealing subsidies to Big Oil, against increasing energy efficiency measures and against efforts to help American drivers go further on a gallon of gas.[2]

• Over the course of his political career, Toomey has received more than $294,000 from energy interests, including $123,800 from the Oil and Gas industry.[3]

• Despite record oil disasters on the Gulf Coast and the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, Toomey continues to support dangerous oil drilling off of America’s coasts as well as in Lake Erie – and as a member of Congress he voted to open the Great Lakes to oil drilling.[4]

• Toomey has also made his staunch opposition to comprehensive energy and climate legislation that creates jobs, reduces pollution and increases our national security a key part of his campaign.[5]

LCV's trademark Dirty Dozen program targets candidates for Congress — regardless of party affiliation — who consistently vote against clean energy and conservation and are running in races in which LCV has a serious chance to affect the outcome. Since 1996, more than 60 percent of the Dirty Dozen have been defeated. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Representatives Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Michelle Bachmann (R- MN) and former Congressman Steve Pearce (R-NM) are currently on the 2010 Dirty Dozen list. Former Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA) was the first candidate to be defeated of the 2010 Dirty Dozen. Learn more at http://www.lcv.org/dirtydozen.