June 09, 2009 10:54 PM UTC

GOP's "Environment Scorecard" Plummets

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Colorado Springs Gazette reports:

One of the state’s leading environmental groups has issued its annual rating of state legislators, and for the first time in eight years, three of the legislators got zeroes.

Two of the three are from Colorado Springs.

Republican Sens. Dave Schultheis and Bill Cadman, along with Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, voted against Colorado Conservation Voters’ positions on all 13 of the bills sampled by the conservation group, which scored votes on a variety of issues: alternative-energy development, mass transit, energy efficiency and environmental protection.

None of the other nine Republicans in the Pikes Peak delegation got a rating higher than 31.

At the other end of the scale, the delegation’s three Democrats – Sen. John Morse and Reps. Michael Merrifield and Dennis Apuan – all received 100s.

Neither Cadman nor Schultheis voiced any regrets about their ratings.

“Those people push policies that promote rights for inanimate objects against the rights of humans,” Cadman said of the conservation group. “They’re out of touch with reality and they’re, frankly, out of touch with most of the citizens of the state.”

“I get concerned if I score too high with them,” said Cadman…

Typical “tree-hugger” joking from Cadman aside, the fact is that Colorado Republicans have not always done as poorly on the Colorado Conservation Voters’ influential scorecard as they did this year. Among the biggest losers, the ones who fell the furthest from last year’s CCV score, were Senators Josh Penry and Scott Renfroe. Penry, who you’d think would be polishing his once quasi-green image for a widely-expected gubernatorial run, but seems more interested in making stuff up these days, fell from a 90% CCV rating in 2008 to a 46% rating in 2009–a 44 percentage point plunge. Renfroe’s zero percent rating reflects a drop from last year’s 50% score.

Others who took a big tumble this year–all Republicans–included Ted Harvey (from 50% in 2008 to 8% this year), Mike Kopp (from 67% to 25%), Greg Brophy (from 60% to 15%), and Shawn Mitchell (from 67% to 22%). By contrast two Republicans scored a little better–in fact, the only two over 50% this year–Ken Kester at 67%, and Kevin Priola who scored a 58%.

Bottom line? Republicans love to pooh-pooh ‘scorecards’ like this one as agenda-pushing entrapment, but in order for them to do that in this case they need to explain how they used to do so comparatively well by the CCV’s reckoning–and why, this year, not so much.