When it comes to environmental protections and addressing climate change, Congressman Leonard Lance is, in the words of Lewis Carroll, getting "curiouser and curiouser."
Lance once had a respectable environmental record. Not so long ago, in 2009, the New Jersey 7th District lawmaker helped pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a bill that would have limited carbon pollution from power plants. Back then, Lance earned a 71 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters for supporting key environmental measures, placing him squarely in the moderate wing of the GOP, which has since has gone the way of the dodo.
And Congressman Lance? Nowadays, he's become a consistent supporter of the GOP leadership's far-right agenda to weaken public health safeguards for our air, land, water and climate, and that's why he's landed on the Daily Dirty Denier$ list.
Lance backed a bill to block the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to limit power plant carbon pollution, a bill empowering other agencies to stop EPA action on climate, a bill making it next to impossible to create any new public safeguards in any area, and he opposed a bill affirming the scientific findings of climate change.
He voted for amendments by House GOP colleagues Reps. Murphy, Lankford, and McKinley disavowing the costs of climate change.
The new (but certainly not improved) Rep. Lance isn't shy about his conservative makeover. He's backed the major budget plans proposed by GOP Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan that would drastically cut environmental protections. Not surprisingly his League of Conservation Voters rating plummeted to 21 percent in 2013 and will be kept low by his anti-environment votes this year.
Among his major campaign donors has been the Every Republican is Crucial PAC, a political action committee headed by the right-wing former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Our advice: Lance should get back in line with his district, and the majority in the nation, by favoring strong federal environmental safeguards and taking action against the growing threat of climate change.