DENVER (AP) _ A national environmental group is already weighing in on Colorado’s U.S. Senate race, expected to be among the most competitive nationwide, by naming Republican candidate Bob Schaffer to its “Dirty Dozen” list.
Tony Massaro of the Washington-based League of Conservation Voters said Thursday that the decision was based on Schaffer’s track record as a congressman for six years and his subsequent business experience.
“The open Senate seat is one of the best chances of picking up a pro-conservation vote,” Massaro said.
Schaffer, in Congress from 1997 to 2003, is seeking his party’s nomination for the seat being vacated by fellow Republican Wayne Allard.
Democratic Congressman Mark Udall, seen as pro-conservation, is also running.
“It’s important early on to let people know that Bob Schaffer is too extreme,” said Massaro, who was in Denver to make the announcement. “Bob Schaffer is way out of step with Colorado.”
Schaffer’s campaign didn’t return a call to The Associated Press Thursday evening.
Colorado GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams called the environmental group’s announcement “as predictable as the sun coming up.”
“This is a regular partisan sideshow by an extreme environmental organization,” Wadhams said.
Wadhams predicted the effect of the group’s decision to target Schaffer will be negligible. “It is a joke,” he added.
Massaro said while in Congress, Schaffer voted to give $33 billion in tax breaks to the energy industry, opposed increasing vehicle fuel efficiency and protested the Clinton administration’s protection of roadless areas in national forests, including more than 4 million acres in Colorado.
Schaffer, a former Colorado legislator from Fort Collins, continues to promote “big oil and dirty coal” as an energy company executive, Massaro said.
The environmental group also denounces Schaffer’s support for a failed statewide ballot proposal that would have provided $2 billion in bonding for large water projects. Western Coloradans saw it as an attempt to grab their water for development on the Front Range and helped defeat it.
Schaffer is the third person named to the League of Conservation Voters “Dirty Dozen” list this campaign season. He joins Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Mich.
The League of Conservation Voters calls itself an independent political voice on environmental issues. Its board includes representatives from some of the country’s largest conservation groups.
The group focuses on competitive races where the stakes for the environment are high, said Massaro, a Glenwood Springs native who formerly headed the Colorado League of Conservation Voters. He said Colorado’s race is important because of the close losses on renewable energy and other conservation measures in the Senate last year.
Former Colorado GOP Congressman Bob Beauprez was the first gubernatorial candidate named to the group’s list. Beauprez lost to Democrat Bill Ritter in the 2006 governor’s race.
The group targeted the opponents of Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., who both won election in 2004.
Nine of the 13 people on the “Dirty Dozen” list in the last in 2006 lost, Massaro said.
