Originally posted at The Seminal.

Ray LaHood (R-IL), who has a lifetime LCV score of 27% (p. 31, pdf), is your new Transportation Secretary. I repeat, a Republican with a consistently bad record on environmental issues has just been nominated to run the Department of Transportation.

Shit.

From his perch atop the Department of Transportation, LaHood will be a key player in the new administration's public works projects designed to stimulate the struggling economy.

Here are some of LaHood's lowlights:

Voted NO on keeping moratorium on drilling for oil offshore. (Jun 2006)

According to the LCV, in 2007 alone he voted against the environment on liquid coal, oil shale, clean air, electric transmission corridors and global warming.

In 2007 he apparently wrote this in a letter to a constituent:

Any energy policy that addresses our petroleum needs must look at increasing our domestic supply. Several areas in the country offer opportunities worth exploring to increase domestic petroleum production, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), other areas in Alaska, the Rocky Mountain region, and along the continental shelf. The technology exists where we can safely extract oil and natural gas from these areas and not adversely affect the local and regional environment. Increasing efficiencies and technological advancement allow us to capture more resources from a smaller footprint.

Right, you're thinking, but he won't be making energy policy. The fact that he was approaching the problem of fueling our vehicles in the wrong way entirely is not encouraging.

He is "known as 'grumpy' by his colleagues".

According to his former press secretary, LaHood "considers himself a real conservative":

Though LaHood is often described as a moderate Republican, that's something of a misnomer, Tessier says. She now works in a public affairs firm but used to be Michel's press secretary.

"Ray considers himself a real conservative," she says. "I think people who are conservative with temperate personalities are sometimes branded as moderates, but that has more to do with their personality."