Sanders Campaign Argues Green Group Betrayed Own Metrics To Back Clinton

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/10/sanders-campaign-argues-green-group-betrayed-own-metrics-back-clinton

"Bernie's record on the environment is unbeatable," said Sanders' spokesperson Michael Briggs. "He has a 95 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters." Sanders has already won a number of significant environmental endorsements, including from fellow Vermonter and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben as well as Friends of the Earth.

In contrast, Briggs observed that the League only "agreed with former Sen. Clinton 82 percent of the time," adding that the endorsement is likely "based on something other than the merits."

National Journal reporter Ben Geman notes that LCV has close ties to the Demo­crat­ic es­tab­lish­ment. "It’s board chair­wo­man, Car­ol Brown­er, formerly served as a top cli­mate-change of­fi­cial in Pres­id­ent Obama’s White House and ran the En­vir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Agency un­der Pres­id­ent Bill Clin­ton," Geman writes. Also, Clinton's cam­paign chair­man John Podesta is a former LCV board mem­ber.

Other environmentalists were equally quick to criticize the decision in light of Clinton's environmental record.

Blogger Brad Johnson tweeted that the group had chosen to back the Democratic candidate "with the weakest climate agenda," pointing to her historic support of fracking as well as the millions Big Oil has donated to the Clinton Foundation.

Similarly, the former Secretary of State's opposition to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline came years after Sanders came out against the project—following a trend of Clinton following his lead on a number of progressive issues.