The Sierra Club released a “Clean Water Report Card” for members of the U.S. House of Representatives this week. Three members of the Iowa delegation received low marks.
This year’s “unprecedented attack from U.S. House of Representatives Leadership on clean water” prompted the Sierra Club to compile the report card. Twelve roll-call votes taken between January and July 2011 were used to produce raw scores and letter grades for all House members. For details on what was at stake in each of those votes, click here (pdf file). For a spreadsheet showing all House members’ votes on the relevant legislation, click here (pdf).
This pdf file shows the results for Iowa’s representatives. Like most House Republicans, Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) received failing grades, having opposed water quality on all 12 bills and amendments scored by the Sierra Club. Seven of those votes were connected to H.R. 1, the continuing resolution the House approved in February to fund the federal government through the end of fiscal year 2011.
Democrat Leonard Boswell got a D for voting against water quality protections on five of the 12 scored roll calls. Three of Boswell’s “failing” votes happened during House consideration of the so-called Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, which sought to undermine the federal government’s ability to enforce the Clean Water Act. Boswell supported that bill in committee and on the House floor. Another “fail” came during House debate on H.R. 1, the 2011 continuing resolution. Boswell opposed that legislation on final passage, but he did support one Republican amendment that would “bar the use of funds made for the EPA to develop, propose, finalize, implement, administer or enforce any regulation that identifies or lists fossil fuel combustion waste (coal ash) as hazardous waste subject to regulation under the Solid Waste Disposal Act.” The last “failing” vote on Boswell’s scorecard was for final passage of a bill relating to pesticide applications.
[T]his bill would prevent the EPA from protecting our waterways from toxic pesticide pollution by exempting pesticides applications from Clean Water Act permitting. The bill overturns a 2009 lawsuit (National Cotton Council et al. v. EPA), which held that certain pesticides are pollutants and are required to be regulated under a water quality permit.
The other two Iowa Democrats in the House did well on the Sierra Club report card. Bruce Braley (IA-01) got an A+. He was absent when the House considered the pesticide bill and supported clean water protections on the other 11 scored votes.
Dave Loebsack (IA-02) got an A for supporting the pro-environment position on 11 of the 12 scored votes. Like Boswell, he was one of 57 House Democrats to support that pesticide bill.
As Bleeding Heartland has discussed before, scorecards based solely on votes don’t tell the whole story about what members of Congress are doing. Public statements, letters to government officials, and legislation introduced (but never voted on) can also indicate where representatives stand. For instance, Braley introduced a bill earlier this year to put more people “with agricultural backgrounds” on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board. I’m guessing that wouldn’t work in favor of stronger water quality protections.
Despite its limitations, the Sierra Club’s report card says a lot about which House members were willing to stand up for clean water this year. No House Republican received higher than a “D” on the report card. Some Democrats scored relatively poorly like Boswell, but most of the Democratic caucus received high marks.
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