Environment, health threatened by recent voting

To the editor:

Here are some hard numbers to demonstrate that elections really matter: 70 and 10.

Seventy was the average League of Conservation Voters lifetime score of senators who chaired environment-related committees in the last Congress. Ten is the average score of the chairs to be sworn in on Jan. 7. That means the people who will have power over our energy policy, our national parks, our health and our air and water pollution laws voted against us nine out every 10 chances they got.

For whatever reason, of the 40 percent of the American electorate who bothered to vote in the recent election, about half voted against us, our health and the environment occupied by us and our children. Enough voted against us that the Senate and House are now held foursquare by a Republican Party that has taken itself away from mainstream America and to an extreme where only corporate profit counts for anything, where the only constituency represented is the board room. Their history suggests that in the coming months our environment and our health will be threatened in ways that we never dreamed possible.

ALAN R.P. JOURNET

Cape Girardeau