Senate and Sensibility

By Amanda Griscom Little, Grist.org. Posted October 28, 2004.

In the midst of one of the most pivotal presidential campaigns in decades, it's easy to forget that we are on the brink of what could be a momentous election in the Senate as well: 34 senatorial seats are up for grabs this year, 19 of them currently held by Democrats, 15 by Republicans. Several of those seats could change parties on Nov. 2, and in a Senate where the GOP holds a narrow majority (51 to 49) over the Dems and one allied independent, merely a few such changeovers could tip the balance of power.

Many observers believe that Republicans are likely to maintain, or even increase, their majority in the Senate, as they're expected to do in the House, where the Democrats' chances are far slimmer. But predicting the outcome of close elections is a perilous game; many of these Senate races are as ambiguous as the Bush-Kerry battle.

"It's plausible without a doubt that the Democrats could regain the majority in the Senate," said Mark Longabaugh, senior vice president for political affairs at the League of Conservation Voters.

And yet there's not much effort coming from the environmental community to make this plausible scenario a reality: The presidential election has absorbed the vast majority of the attention and resources in the current campaign season, and has pushed voter outreach for congressional campaigns to the back burner. The League of Conservation Voters, for instance, typically spends the majority of its campaign funds on congressional races, but this year only about one-sixth of its estimated budget of $6 million or more has been allocated to help elect eco-friendly candidates to the House and Senate; the lion's share is being spent to help defeat George W. Bush.

But though all eyes are on the battle for the White House, congressional races are deserving of enviros' attention. Many of Bush's most controversial moves – environmental or otherwise – could never have been made without the cooperation of the GOP-dominated Congress. Six Senate races in particular – in Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania – have been featuring green issues prominently, and could in turn have powerful impacts on environmental lawmaking in the next Congress. If pro-environment candidates win in even half of these races, it could help usher through the Senate a number of key environmental bills, including the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act.

Here's a chance to beef up on the good, the bad, and the ugly records of candidates in the Senate races that could matter most for the planet.

Colorado: Pete Coors (R) vs. Ken Salazar (D)

Colorado's Senate race is expected to be one of the closest in the country, and "perhaps here more than anywhere else, environmental concerns will play a defining role in the outcome of the election," said LCV's Longabaugh. Thirty-seven percent of polled voters in the Centennial State consider themselves or someone in their household to be a strong environmentalist, according to a recent News 4/Rocky Mountain News poll.

Ken Salazar, Colorado attorney general and former head of the state's Department of Natural Resources, is facing off against beer magnate Pete Coors, chair of a company that has been fined millions of dollars for air and water pollution violations, and one of the righter-leaning Republicans running for the Senate.

Coors likes to play up his stint as former national president of the conservation group Ducks Unlimited, which advocates wetlands protections. He also hypes his appointment by Interior Secretary Gale Norton (a former Colorado attorney general herself) to the National Wildlife Refuge System Centennial Commission.

Salazar portrays himself as a grassroots environmentalist, having grown up on his family ranch in the San Luis Valley, which he said at a recent debate taught him to "develop a special relationship and a special sense of place through the ditches and the rivers and trees and the rocks and the soil." And he can back up the fuzzy-wuzzy language: Salazar has endorsements from both LCV and the Sierra Club, and he's got many successful battles against polluters under his belt. He created his state's first environmental crimes unit as attorney general, and managed to slap one California businessman with a 17-year prison sentence for illegally dumping dry-cleaning effluent in Colorado.

Salazar is a strong opponent of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while Coors supports it. Salazar backs an amendment on the ballot that would require Colorado's biggest utilities to produce 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2015; Coors doesn't want to mandate renewables development, but rather proposes tax credits to incentivize it. Salazar is cautious about pursuing more oil and gas development on the state's Western Slope, not ruling it out, but arguing that more research needs to be done on the possible environmental impacts. Coors, meanwhile, has good reason to support more drilling; he serves on the board of directors of Energy Corporation of America, a Denver-based oil and gas exploration company.

Amanda Griscom Little writes the Muckraker column for Grist Magazine.

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