Heck is no friend of the environment

By Sara Chieffo, Washington, D.C.

Thursday, April 28, 2016 | 2 a.m.

The letter “Heck’s energy efforts are crucial” (Las Vegas Sun, April 5) gives Congressman Joe Heck a whole of lot of credit for joining a new energy and environment working group in the House of Representatives, but Heck’s voting record reveals a very different set of anti-environmental priorities.

In Congress, Heck consistently votes against protections for our air, water, land and wildlife, earning him a dismal lifetime score of 8 percent on the League of Conservation Voters’ National Environmental Scorecard. He has voted multiple times to block the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan — the single biggest step our country has ever taken to tackle climate change — and he recently supported an energy bill that prioritizes dirty fossil fuels instead of investing in solar, wind and geothermal energy at a time when clean-energy projects are breaking new ground in Nevada and across the country.

Heck has also voted to roll back protections for species on the brink of extinction and to undercut the authority used by presidents of both parties for more than a century to protect special places, such as the Grand Canyon and, most recently in central Nevada, the Basin and Range National Monument.

If Heck truly cares about championing Nevada’s clean-energy economy and protecting the state’s natural wonders, why has he voted against the environment at nearly every chance since he was elected to Congress in 2010? It will take a lot more than joining this new group to green-wash his extreme record.

The writer is vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters.