By Coral Davenport
National Journal
Environmental groups have pulled out all the stops in what they see as a David-and-Goliath fight for influence in congressional races. The green organizations are spending record sums to counter an all-fronts assault on their agenda by business interest groups. The green groups say that they know they're outmatched in the battle against coalitions that have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns attacking Democrats who back climate-change policy -- but that they will spend as much as they can to minimize the damage to their cause.
"It's a defensive campaign like 'The Empire Strikes Back,'" said Cathy Duvall, political director of the Sierra Club. "We've made phenomenal progress over the past two years, and we're trying to keep that in place."
The green groups say that even with an infusion of spending, the best they're hoping for is to keep in office a handful of moderate Democrats who voted for last year's climate-change bill; limit the number of new climate-change deniers who come into office; and protect one state's existing climate-change law.
Duvall is following the lead of President Obama, who blasted interest groups during a speech this month in Columbus, Ohio. "They're fighting back," Obama said. "The empire is striking back. To win this election, they are plowing tens of millions of dollars into front groups. They are running misleading negative ads all across the country."
The three environmental groups that have dominated efforts to influence House and Senate races â€" the League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife â€" have to date spent $6.5 million on media, mail and canvassing campaigns, compared with $6.3 million spent by the three groups in the entire 2008 election. And the groups say they plan to dramatically ramp up their spending in the days before Nov. 2 elections.
And five environmental groups — the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Foundation, ClimateWorks Foundation and Nature Conservancy -- have spent $6.8 million more to defeat California Proposition 23. If passed, that ballot initiative will effectively freeze the state's landmark climate-change law.
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That's big money for environmental advocacy during a campaign. But it's nothing compared with what the opposition will spend: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce alone, whose members include some of the fiercest opponents of climate-change and other environmental regulation, has pledged to spend $75 million to influence voters before Nov. 2.
The environmental groups say that they are used to being outspent by big business -- but that January's Supreme Court decision Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which overturned a law forbidding corporate spending on campaign advertisements, has made the equation much more lopsided.
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"We're pleased that we're spending a record amount," said Tony Massarro, political director for the League of Conservation Voters. But he added: "Every time we add a half a million dollars, Crossroads adds $5 million." American Crossroads, a conservative group linked to Karl Rove, has plunged $17 million into influencing races.
With more resources than usual but far less than the opposition, the environmental groups are targeting a handful of key races where they believe their ad buys -- amounting to $250,000 to $650,000 -- can make a difference. While business groups such as the Chamber of Commerce have been spending in dozens more races, they have tended to keep expenditures around $100,000 — although for high-priority races, they have not hesitated to spend $1 million or more. Topping the green-group help list: tight House races in which Democratic incumbents have been slammed for supporting last year's cap-and-trade bill, and tight Senate races where the Republican takes issue with scientific consensus on climate change.
In the Senate contests, the green groups are sinking the most money in Colorado, where incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet is running neck-and-neck with Republican Ken Buck, a climate-change skeptic. Buck has allied himself the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Oklahoma's James Inhofe, who has said that the assertion that climate change is human-made is a hoax. The Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters have spent $810,554 to support Bennet and oppose Buck; the Chamber of Commerce has spent $3 million and American Crossroads $4 million trying to unseat Bennet.
House Democrats's re-election bids are getting green-group money in places like Michigan, where the League of Conservation Voters and Sierra Club have spent $617,663 to boost Mark Schauer; Ohio, where the League of Conservation Voters has spent $250,018 to help John Boccieri; and Virginia, where the League and Sierra Club have spent $562,205 to help Tom Perriello.
Environmental groups owe a particular debt to Perriello. While most Democrats who have been slammed for their votes on cap-and-trade have spoken in a low-key way about the issue, Perriello has touted it — to environmentalists' delight but possibly to his detriment. Polls show him trailing Republican challenger Robert Hurt by a hair.
"Tom Perriello has made himself the poster child in defending this vote," said Joshua Freed, Clean Energy Program director for the Third Way, a centrist Democratic group.
"He's been an aggressive gambler — the green groups feel an obligation to double down for him. ... In races this tight, every dollar spent or every dollar held back could be the difference."
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Freed and others pointed out that Perriello and the other embattled Democrats have been targets of major industry since June 26, 2009 — the day they voted "yes" on the cap-and-trade bill.
"This was all presaged in the days immediately after the Waxman-Markey vote," Freed said. "This is a repeat on a much bigger stage of what happened in summer 2009. The environmental movement knew what was coming and tried to prepare for it. That's why you're seeing them spend so much, and so strategically."
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