John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record

We were shocked -- but definitely not awed -- by Senator McCain's decision two weeks ago to dodge a crucial vote on the future of clean energy in America.

Remember, his choice to stay parked on the tarmac at Dulles (while his two planemates, Senators Lieberman and Graham, dashed to the Capitol in time to vote) doomed the measure to fail by just a single vote.

It was, however, awesome that thousands of Sierra Club e-activists took the phones and called McCain's office to register their discontent with the Arizona senator's no-show act.  In fact, so many called that his phone system was down intermittently for days.  Not awesome: McCain's office lying to our members about how he voted.

But, last week we got an even bigger reminder of John McCain's Not Awesome status when it comes to crucial votes on the environment. He received a big fat ZERO from the League of Conservation Voters on their 2007 National Environmental Scorecard.

Turns out his recent attendance problem is no exception, just merely the most recent example of a consistent pattern of refusing to stand up and be counted when the environment is on the line. In fact, out of 535 Members of Congress, John McCain is the only one who chose to miss every single key environmental vote last year.