When it came to supporting environmental issues in 2003, the Oregon Legislature flunked miserably with a 39 percent rating, according to the 2003 Environmental Scorecard.
Released by the Oregon League of Conservation Voters on Oct. 21, the scorecard showed the local environment as battered after the Legislature passed more than two dozen anti-environmental bills in 2003.
Katy Daily, the Oregon league’s field director and Lane County staff person, said Oregon’s failing score reveals a need for more public involvement at the local level.
“A lot of people think globally when they think of the environment, but there are a lot of really local issues that affect our lives even more,” she said. “We want voters to be able to use the scorecard as a tool.”
The scorecard identified four environmentally harmful bills that Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed into law.
Among those were bills that weakened the state Forest Practices Act and put taxpayers at risk of covering polluters’ Willamette River clean-up costs.
One bill allocated less than 20 percent of the necessary implementation funds for the Pesticide Use Reporting System, a four-year-old effort designed to track what pesticides are used where in Oregon — and in what quantities — to help protect public health and water quality.
Although more anti-environmental bills became law this year relative to the last four years, fewer bills reached the governor overall because of individual senator efforts, Daily said.
As a representative of the University area, Sen. Tony Corcoran, D-Cottage Grove, received credit from the Oregon league for stopping most of the House-passed bills in Senate committee.
“He kind of played goalie,” Daily said.
Corcoran said he has mixed feelings about the results of the 2003 scorecard because 10 of his fellow senators received scores of zero percent.
“The fact that so many other representatives had bad scores shows that the OLCV is very rigid in its position,” Corcoran said.
OLCV Political Director Jed Jorgensen said the 2003 scores should not be taken lightly.
“It’s time to put Oregon first,” he said in a recent press release. “This Legislature failed to clean up our rivers and protect our farmland. Voters should hold them accountable at the ballot box in 2004.”
Besides encouraging Oregon voters to contact the state representatives included in the scorecard phone list, Daily said the Oregon league hopes to inspire young voters to be more politically active and aware of environmental issues.
“It would be great to get more students to support pro-environment candidates,” Daily said. “A ot of campus people miss out on local decisions that affect our everyday life.”
Although hard copies of the scorecard are not available to the general public, the 2003 scorecard and past scorecards are online at http://www.olcv.org/scorecard.