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How Reliable is CLCV's 2009 California Environmental Scorecard?

by Dan Bacher

December 12, 2009 -- For 36 years, the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) has compiled its annual scorecard of the Legislature and Governor's actions on key environmental issues. 
 
Like many others, I have regarded the scorecard as a relatively balanced assessment of the records of the Legislators and Governor on environmental issues by a group that describes itself as "the non-partisan political action arm of California's environmental movement." However, the CLCV's positions on two key issues over the past year - the water legislation package and the Governor's fast-track MLPA process - put the credibility of the organization's scorecard and the organization itself in doubt. 
 
CLCV just released its annual California Environmental Scorecard, in which the organization claims it tells "the story of the tumultuous 2009 legislative session and definitively scores California's lawmakers on their environmental performance." 
 
"2009 was a year dominated by the one-two punch of California's continuing budget crisis and a weak economy," according to a statement from the group. "Erratic leadership from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and a deeply polarized legislature combined to bring the state to a breaking point." 
 
On the positive side, the CLCV gives the Governor a rating of only 28 percent for his vetoes of environmental bills. "The governor earned his 28% score by vetoing ten of the fifteen pro-environmental bills that reached his desk and signing three bad bills — his worst performance yet," the group said. 
 
However, CLCV then describes the passage of the water policy legislative that creates the path to the peripheral canal, more dams and the destruction of the California Delta as "an important victory" and a "historic set of bills." This legislation was strongly opposed by a broad coalition of conservation, fishing, environmental justice and family farming organizations. 
 
"As the year ended, and after months of behind-the-scenes negotiating, they enacted a historic set of bills designed to reform an essential part of the state’s infrastructure that has itself reached a breaking point: the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta," the organization claims."By enacting policies to restore the delta’s ecosystem and provide a more reliable water supply, the legislative leaders and the governor seemed bound and determined to prove they could act decisively on a big, complicated issue, and there is no issue in California more complicated than water." 
 
Rather than doing the right thing and opposing the legislation, the California League of Conservation Voters joined NRDC, the Nature Conservancy and Environmental Defense in supporting Senate President Pro Tem and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's legislative path to a peripheral canal and more dams. 
 
The legislation that CLCV supported creates a "Delta Stewardship Council" consisting of 7 members. Since 4 of the 7 members are appointed by Schwarzenegger, he will inevitably pick political hacks that will support his agenda to build a peripheral canal and increase water exports. 
 
The CLCV also endorses the legislation's enshrinement of the "co-equal goals" of ecosystem restoration and water supply. These are the same goals that have led to the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail, striped bass and other species in the Delta through the failed Cal-Fed process. 
 
The legislative package that CLCV endorsed completely excluded the input of Delta Legislators, family farmers, recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen, California Indian Tribes and environmental justice communities. The legislation was developed in closed, back room sessions between Legislative leaders, Schwarzenegger, the Metropolitan Water District, Westlands Water District and corporate environmental groups. 
 
The CLCV press release notes that "The legislature acted on the water policy package as the Scorecard went to press—the package was not scored in the 2009 Scorecard." 
 
Second, the current leadership of the organization strongly supports Schwarzenegger's fast-track Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) initiative, a corrupt, privately funded process that aims to kick California Indians, seaweed harvesters and fishermen off the ocean to pave the way for oil rigs, corporate aquaculture and wave energy projects while completely taking water quality off the table in so-called "Marine Protected Areas." 
 
How can the CLCV support the decision of the South Coast Blue Ribbon Task force that has as its chair Catherine Reheis-Boyd, an oil industry lobbyist who will become the president of the Western States Petroleum Association in January? How can it possibly support an unjust process that has refused to engage with California Indian Tribes in government to government relations and has already stripped the Kashia Pomo Tribe and other tribes on the North Central Coast of their traditional seaweed, abalone and mussel gathering rights? 
 
While CLCV rightfully criticizes Schwarzenegger for the environmental bills he vetoed in 2009, the group supports legislation that enables Schwarzenegger to build the peripheral canal and backs the MLPA corporate greenwashing process. CLVC stands in opposition to true environmental justice and must be challenged for collaborating with Schwarzenegger in his plan to build a peripheral canal and drive Central Valley salmon and Delta fish species over the abyss of extinction. 
 
Another puzzling aspect of the CLCV's scorecard is how is how it has given relatively high ratings to the Governor in past years when Schwarzenegger has proven himself to be the worst ever Governor for fish and the environment in California history. 
 
"In his first five years, Governor Schwarzenegger’s Scorecard record ranged from 50% to 63%—hardly an environmental superstar, but far better than his Republican legislative counterparts," the group contends. 
 
Warner Chabot, CLCV’s chief executive officer, said, "The weak economy and budget deficits required tough decisions, but they also created opportunities. But, rather than seize opportunities to protect our natural resources and create clean energy jobs, Gov. Schwarzenegger rejected the vast majority of well-considered environmental legislation that landed on his desk. This is an unfortunate retreat from the leadership that the governor has often provided.” 
 
"An unfortunate retreat from the leadership that the governor has often provided?" - who does Chabot think he is kidding? 
 
While Schwarzenegger and his staff will jet off to Copenhagen, Denmark next week to promote "cap-and-trade" policies as part of a corporate "green energy" money making scam, Schwarzenegger has waged a relentless war against Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations over the past six years. Besides vetoing many good environmental bills, promoting the peripheral canal and more dams, and engineering a corporate take over of the MLPA process, the Schwarzenegger administration has: 
 
• Presided over the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt and other fish populations by allowing the state to pump record water exports out of the Delta from 2004 to 2006. 
 
• Continually attacked the biological opinions for Sacramento River chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon, the southern resident population of killer whales and Delta smelt. 
 
• Relentlessly cut the DFG staff, resulting in California having the lowest per capita ratio of game wardens in the field and making the state a paradise for fish and game poachers. 
 
• Tried to pit Klamath dam removal advocates against Central Valley fish restoration proponents by including $250 million for Klamath dam removal in the water bond package. Fortunately, the tribes, fishing groups and conservation organizations supporting dam removal have refused to fall for Schwarzenegger's attempt to divide and conquer. 
 
• Pressured the Central Valley Water Regional Water Quality Control Board to give waivers to agricultural polluters. 
 
Other crimes of the Schwarzenegger administration against fish and the environment include doing absolutely nothing to stop a massive fish kill at Prospect Island in the North Delta in November 2007 during a levee repair. As a result, tens of thousands of striped bass, Sacramento blackfish, Sacramento splittail, sunfish and other fish species died. While the federal government cooperated with volunteers on conducting a fish rescue, the Schwarzenegger administration did everything it could to discourage it. 
 
I'm sorry, but I don't see any environmental "leadership" shown by Schwarzenegger during his six years in office, particularly when you carefully examine his horrendous record regarding water and fisheries. 
 
To look at CLCV's California Environmental Scorecard and the year in review, go to: http://www.ecovote.org/scorecards/2009/