That's "GREEN", as in the color of special interest money

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, sitting pretty with over $10 million in his campaign funds, has released a new re-election ad in which he claims he is the "Godfather of Green" and an "environmental champion". I never cease to be amazed at these shameless pricks.

From Think Progress (1/12/08)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has released a new ad for his 2008 re-election campaign, heralding himself as a “Godfather of Green” and an “environmental champion.”

McConnell’s environmental stewardship, according to the ad, consists of securing a $38 million earmark for city parks in Louisville and the creation of the Jefferson Memorial Forest, which features a Mitch McConnell Loop Trail.

McConnell may know how to bring home the pork for his constituents, but that hardly qualifies him as an “environmental champion.” McConnell had a zero percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters during the 109th Congress, and has earned only a 7% lifetime rating.

A look at some of his actions that have earned him such a dismal rating:

– McConnell helped to pass the 2005 Energy Policy Act, a bill the League of Conservation Voters called “the most anti-environmental piece of legislation signed into law in recent memory.”

– McConnell led the fight to block the renewable electricity standard and the green tax package from the 2007 energy bill, calling them “millstones.”

– McConnell has repeatedly voted to allow drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

– McConnell has repeatedly voted against Senate bills recognizing global warming, including a “sense of the Senate” amendment expressing “the need…to address global climate change through comprehensive and cost-effective national measures and through the negotiation of fair and binding international commitments.”

– McConnell helped notorious global warming denier Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) try to block Al Gore’s “Live Earth” concert in Washington, DC, by raising an objection to the resolution allowing the concert to take place on the capitol’s West Front.

McConnell’s anti-environmental stance means he faces the “the single biggest vulnerability for the Republicans,” in the words of Republican strategist Frank Luntz.