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Congressman extends record of environmental excellence with co-sponsorship of the Safe Climate Act to combat global warming.

Environment Illinois and Illinois PIRG honored Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. for his third straight perfect score on the annual scorecard of congressional votes most critical to the public interest. Rep. Jackson has consistently voted on the side of environmental protection, consumer protection, public health, and increasing access to college education.

"While special interests wield enormous pressure and wealth in their pursuit of narrow agendas that benefit the few, Representative Jackson has remained steadfast in his defense of the public interest for the people of his district, state, and country,” said Max Muller, environmental advocate at Environment Illinois. “We applaud Representative Jackson’s record of leadership on critical environmental issues and are proud to honor him as a Public Interest Champion."

This year, Rep. Jackson continues his environmental winning streak with his announcement today that he will cosponsor the Safe Climate Act (H.R. 5642), a bill to reduce global warming, one of Environment Illinois’s top policy priorities.

“I’m particularly proud of Rep. Jackson’s decision to cosponsor the Safe Climate Act,” said Rebecca Stanfield, State Director of Environment Illinois. “Global warming poses a very serious threat to Illinois and the world. We can protect our children and future generations only if more in Congress, like Representative Jackson, can find the political will to adopt common sense solutions to reduce global warming pollution.”

Representative Jackson was the only one of Illinois’s 21 member Congressional delegation to achieve a perfect score on the 2006 Congressional Scorecard. The scorecard ranks members based on their votes on the 22 most important public interest and environmental issues before Congress between February 9, 2005 and February 1, 2006.

The votes tabulated in the scorecard determine the direction of federal policy on issues critical to the environment, health care, consumer protection, and access to higher education, and most of them sharply divided Congress. Environmental issue addressed in the scorecard include protecting the Arctic Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling, making polluters pay for contaminating groundwater, slowing global warming by updating auto fuel efficiency standards, and ending giveaways to big oil companies. Other public interest votes tabulated include stopping a $14.3 billion cut to student loans and protecting online freedom of speech and consumer bankruptcy rights.

Rep. Jackson’s decision, announced today, to cosponsor the Safe Climate Act is consistent with his record of prioritizing environmental stewardship. Global warming is the greatest environmental challenge of our time, as indicated by rising sea levels, decreasing ice and snow packs, and the advent each year of evermore powerful storms. Leading scientists caution that we are nearing a climate “tipping point,” beyond which large-scale, dangerous impacts will become unavoidable. The Safe Climate Act aims to keep emissions of the pollutants that cause global warming below this threshold to protect future generations from catastrophic changes to the climate. The Act requires the U.S. to reduce our global warming pollution by 15% by 2020 and by 80% by 2050.

“For a change, science is informing the direction of public policy on global warming in Washington,” said Rebecca Stanfield, Director of Environment Illinois.  “Representative Jackson took a stand today by  supporting scientists’ calls for real reductions of global warming pollution.

We applaud Jackson for joining in this effort.”

The 2006 Congressional Scorecard was prepared by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which is the federal advocacy office of Environment Illinois and Illinois PIRG. The full scorecard is available at http://uspirg.org/reports/congscorecard06.pdf.

For more information, contact Max Muller, Environmental Advocate, at 312-291-0696 x211 

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