Green presidential candidates?

There has been a lot of talk about the environment in all three of the presidential campaigns in 2008 - unlike anything we've seen in previous years.

Voters are asking who will take the lead in the fight against global warming, who will strengthen the environmental protections that the Bush administration spent the last 7 1/2 years weakening, who will do the most to remind us that we are all responsible for our choices and encourage us to choose wisely so that we can be proud of the environmental legacy we pass on to our children?

This year we are in a unique situation. Many of us who have been working to push environmental protections forward for years are pleasantly surprised to hear the environment mentioned in stump speeches across the country (not just in Oregon where it is mainstream to bleed green) - to hear voters question the candidates again and again on their plans to fight global warming or explain how they will invest in clean, renewable energy.

Seattlepi.com recently reported:

All three support the development of clean energy and limiting the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. All agree that it's important to restore Puget Sound. All have opposed oil drilling in the ecologically fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And none is willing to back the removal of Snake River dams as a means of saving the region's waning salmon populations.

But there are fundamental differences -- mostly between the two Democrats and the Republican. It's clear from a look at the senators' lifetime voting records. Out of 100 points, Clinton scores a "90," Obama a "96" and McCain a "26," as tallied by the League of Conservation Voters, which, like other major environmental groups, has not endorsed a candidate.

You can learn more about the environmental records of all three presidential candidates at www.lcv.org/voterguide or below:

Democrats:

Senator Hillary Clinton

Senator Barack Obama

Republican:

Senator John McCain

Read "How green are the presidential candidates?" at seattlepi.com.