Scorecard skews votes and issues to favor liberals

To the editor:

It was reported recently that the League of Conservation Voters released its 2001 national environmental scorecard. The scorecard claims to demonstrate which elected officials had a pro-environment voting record in 2001 and which did not. However, important environmental votes were actually ignored in the scorecard while other issues, including abortion and campaign reform, were included.

Important environmental votes ignored in the scorecard included brownfield revitalization, which allows for economic development in predominately minority neighborhoods through the cleanup of polluted urban industrial sites, and the Pacific Salmon Recovery Act.

Non-environmental votes included opposition to limiting federal family-planning grants to overseas organizations that do not carry out abortions and support for Sen. John McCain's campaign-finance reform bill.

This rigging of the scorecard resulted in artificially high scores for liberal elected officials while providing support for the liberal stance on abortion and campaign reform.

The scorecard betrays LCV's liberalism and seems to be designed to provide high environmental scores to liberal elected officials and lower ones to moderates and conservatives, regardless of their votes on the full range of environmental issues.

I'm tired of the liberally biased media promoting liberalism in the guise of protecting the environment. This scorecard from the League of Conservation Voters is just one more example.

WILLIAM SCOTT HARRIS

Jackson, Mo.