Know the Score

You’ve taken the first step towards protecting Oregon’s environment: knowing how your elected representatives voted.

Do they hold polluters accountable for the toxic messes they leave behind? Or do they shower those polluters with new tax breaks?

Do they focus on the legacy we leave our kids, willing to invest in long-term efforts to promote renewable energy and keep our neighborhoods great places to live? Or do they engage in short-term, me-first thinking at the expense of future generations?

Too many legislators come down on the wrong side of these questions. Their votes show a clear and consistent pattern of siding with polluters, developers, and timber companies and against ordinary citizens. They would let more polluters off the hook and would despoil the legacy we should be leaving our kids.

No other bill tells this story better than HB 3481, an effort by farmers and environmental groups to promote biodiesel as a renewable, locally grown, non-toxic alternative fuel. Oregon’s House Leadership killed the proposal by demanding major new tax breaks for industrial polluters as “ransom” for its passage, a ransom that would have created more pollution and cost taxpayers dearly.

OLCV’s Scorecard is a tool with which you can fight back against this type of gamesmanship. At the detailed level, you can learn how your legislators voted on more than twenty specific environmental bills. Or, you can look at their overall score and learn what percentage of the votes they cast were pro-environment.   

And you can then take action. The Scorecard is the first step. 

Individually, we may feel powerless to take action that dramatically improves Oregon’s Legislature. But together, we are strong. 

Together, we can create a government that protects our health today and promotes a better future for our children tomorrow.

Jonathan Poisner

Executive Director