“The American people deserved more principled, more responsible environmental leadership than they received today from a majority of House members,” said Betsy Loyless, political director of the League of Conservation Voters (LCV). “With the exception of a large, bipartisan core group of representatives - like Edward Markey, Nancy Johnson, Jay Inslee, Sherwood Boehlert, Nick Rahall, John Lewis and Christopher Shays - the House failed to truly represent the environmental priorities and values of most Americans. A majority of Republicans and a key number of Democrats chose to sacrifice a pristine wilderness to meaningless energy production and ignored reasonable steps to improve America’s energy efficiency. The American people deserve better environmental leadership from Congress and LCV will do its part in the 2002 elections to make sure they get it.”

The Markey-Johnson amendment to prevent opening Alaska’s pristine coastal plain to oil and gas drilling fell, 206 to 222. The estimated oil supply from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would meet the nation’s energy needs for only six months and wouldn’t even enter the market for 10 years. A recent League of Conservation Voters Education Fund poll revealed that 62 percent of all Americans oppose Bush’s proposal to drill in the Arctic Refuge. To win the vote, the administration’s allies funneled millions of dollars into advertising and lobbying campaigns that mislead representatives and labor groups into believing that drilling in the Arctic Refuge could be conducted in an environmentally sound way and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The Boehlert-Markey amendment to close the loophole in fuel efficiency standards that allows SUVs and light trucks to skirt the same limits applied to automobiles went down to defeat, 160 to 269. A recent National Academy of Sciences report concluded that the auto industry could improve the fuel efficiency of gas-guzzling SUVs by as much as one-third over the next 15 years without raising overall costs for consumers. This week General Motors, among other auto manufacturers, distributed hyperbolic materials to frighten representatives into believing that closing the SUV loophole would cost lives and jobs.