If you please.

These ratings have Edwards dead last among the Democratic candidates, and his supporters still insist that--because he parrots whatever Al Gore says--he's the best candidate for the environment. He co-sponsored the AUMF, and his supporters still insist that--because he parrots whatever Kos says about Iraq--he's the best candidate to end the war. I completely understand the appeal of Edwards' message, and I agree with probably 95% or more of his platform, but I just don't understand how anyone can get past his actual record.

Here's a quick list of lifetime LCV ratings for a few Democratic Senators from states that voted for Bush in 2004:

Daniel Akaka (HI) - 84%
Jeff Bingamin (NM) - 78%
Max Baucus (MT) - 66%
Robert Byrd (WV) - 63%

All higher scores than Edwards. Give me a break.

who called Richardson's plan the most aggressive.

If you're a senator from a 'red' state, your record on enviornment should not be that bad.

This is just another evidence of Edwards 'say one thing, do another' gimmick...

This exercise assumes our Presidential candidates must come directly from Congress; further it only takes their Congressional record.  Then it allows non statistically significant records to weigh the same as more indepth records.  For example, Obama's score is based on two years of voting.  Huh?  Richardson hasn't been in Congress for over 10 years, but his gubernatorial record is ignored, as well as his record as Secretary of Energy.

Senator Obama, on the other hands, not only gets the benefit of a 21st century consciousness, he get to rest on a legislative record of only 2 years.

That makes for a skewed picture.  It's not turning a blind eye, it means that both eyes are blind.

LCV and other groups are nice in informing your decision and giving general overviews, but don't trust blindly.  Make sure you do your own research.

LCV scorecard archives, for checking out what votes led to the summary scores: http://www.lcv.org/scorecard/past-scorec ards/

MoveOn.org Global Warming Town Hall, directly from the lips of the candidates, and with another useful LCV resource pdf summarizing the candidate's views: http://pol.moveon.org/townhall/climate/t ownhall2.html

I especially like the LCV summary chart from the Town Hall.  Who knew that Dodd, which the summary score above would think was much less enviornmentally-friendly than Kucinich or Obama, has the best plan for MPG standards (50 mpg by 2017, compared to 33 mpg by 2017 for Kucinich and 40 mpg by 2020 for Obama)?  Only Dodd, Edwards, and Richardson meet all of LCV's positions on Global Warming Policy.  The main reason is the wishy-washiness of the other candidates on new coal plants and on so-called "liquid coal."

Since these votes haven't come up yet, they're not factored into the overall scores.  I think what a candidate will do as president should be given significant weight and balanced against their record.  There is, of course, that whole issue of trust, and whether you trust that they would actually follow through with the promises that they're making.  I think that I trust the candidates would all try to do what they say on the LCV chart, and the "no articulated position" of so many of them on a ban on new coal plants without carbon capture is really frightening.

Perhaps no other issue has been as misstated as Liquid Coal has.  The MoveOn Town hall was enormously unfair in not asking every candidate the same question which skewed the audience against those who had to tackle the Coal question where there is tremendous knee-jerk antagonism toward the issue without much listening.  Obama supposed support has always been for research that would accomplish the goal of effective capture and sequestration and if no success in that area then no support going forward.  His recent response to Charley Rose about education is directly tied into this.  One of the strengths of Obama is he sees the connectiveness of issues and fashions his policies around them.  We are lagging behind the rest of the world in Science and Math education and teachers.  During the Kennedy times we weren't in part because of the inspiration the Space Program gave to our young people.  For Obama, the Environmental challenges of Global Warming can serve as the same inspirational beacon for the next generation of Scientists and Engineers.  There are benefits across the board for putting out challenge of how do we make Liquid Coal an environmentally friendly bridge process to take us from dependence on Foreign Oil to complete reliance on Renewable Energy.  That is his Liquid Coal stance.  It doesn't place all our eggs in the Coal basket, and it doesn't allow Liquid Coal production without first solving the sequestration problem.  But it does offer research money for those who believe they can meet the challenge - and that is something we all should be for.

This interview should be helpful when discussing Obama with environmental activists who are unsure where the Senator stands:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/ 07/30/obama/

Here's a great intro...

In his two and a half years in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama has been active -- even hyperactive -- on matters of energy and the environment. The Democrat from Illinois has introduced or cosponsored nearly 100 eco-related bills on issues ranging from lead poisoning and mercury emissions to auto fuel economy and biofuels promotion. Along the way, he's racked up a notable 96 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters.

The interview also discusses the Liquid Coal controversy and other issues

Yeah, I think this list is somewhat misleading. There was a good point above that this only takes into account congressional voting records, so Edwards definitely shouldn't have such a low score.

The thing I do take away from this list, though, is that Obama has a great record on the environment, according to environmentalists. This is despite the liquid coal issue, which some people have made a lot of hay with. (For the record, I don't have a problem with liquid coal, and I also don't care much about global warming.)

Obama is definitely a strong green candidate.

those ratings don't really tell the whole story especially since missed votes are counted negatively but there is more to it than that.

when he announced in 2004, LCV was anything but disappointed:

"An excellent choice that sends a clear message about the need for change and renewed optimism in our nation's leadership for conservation, public health, and other issues important to the American people," said the League of Conservation Voters. "Yet another strong environmental leader [on] the Democratic presidential ticket," said Environment2004. "Sen. Edwards consistently stands up to preserve and strengthen the laws that keep Americans' air, water, and public land clean and safe," said Debbie Sease, the Sierra Club's legislative director.

http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2004/07/1 6/griscom-edwards/

and had some excellent things to say about him and his plan this time around:

"The League of Conservation Voters applauds Sen. John Edwards for taking the lead in announcing aggressive plans to combat global warming. Senator Edwards' key policy is to enact a cap that will achieve 80 percent reductions in emissions by mid-century, mirroring the Sanders-Boxer (S.309) bill in Congress.

Senator Edwards also calls for an aggressive energy efficiency plan that will meet all of America's growing energy needs, while requiring that a quarter of our nation's electricity is produced from renewables by 2025.

Senator Edwards' plan demonstrates that he understands the magnitude of the challenge before us and the need for bold leadership to meet it.

America can lead the world in developing the technologies and jobs of the new energy economy instead of outsourcing those opportunities to other countries. Forward-looking approaches will restore America's credibility abroad and make us leaders in the fight to combat global warming.

Senator Edwards has outlined the most comprehensive global warming plan of any presidential candidate to date. We look forward to other 2008 presidential candidates outlining their plans to address this pressing issue."

http://johnedwards.com/news/headlines/lc v20070320/index.html

Some Members of Congress are pushing the U.S. to adopt a more robust program for turning America's coal reserves into fuel. Unfortunately, the process for extracting a usable fuel from coal produces a tremendous amount of global warming pollution. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, using coal-derived fuel produces nearly twice as much carbon dioxide (a key global warming pollutant) as using gasoline, turning a compact car into an SUV from a global warming perspective. Even if we could somehow capture the carbon (and no technology exists today,) coal fuels are still about 10% worse than gasoline. Rather than spending billions to support a process that makes the global warming problem worse, we should focus our efforts on increasing fuel efficiency for cars and trucks.

There's a couple of important issues to consider about Liquid Coal. Most importantly, for America, it is only a bridge from Foreign Oil to total renewables.  The advantage of the Fischer-Tropisch process is that the plants can be converted cheaply into using plants as the feedstock.  So we can make that transition without causing major economic upheaval once that happens.  To be able to really transition not just our creation of energy but also the economies and jobs of the coal regions of our country is the most responsible way of thinking environmentally - realizing the connectivity of all aspects of the issue.  Secondly, even when we move away from Coal as a resource, other countries in the world will be relying on it, namely China and India.  To invest money in research now has the potential of creating a clean-coal technology to export to the rest of the World, adding to our economy while dealing with the Global part of Global Warming.  It is not good enough to simply deal with our own Coal problem while ignoring the rest of the world.