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To the Editor: 

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) recently released their 2001 National Environmental Scorecard. The scorecard claims to demonstrate which elected officials had a pro-environment voting record in 2001 and which did not. However, important environmental votes were actually ignored in the scorecard while other issues, including abortion and campaign reform, were included. 

Non-environmental votes included opposition to limiting federal family planning grants to overseas organizations to those that do not carry out abortions and support for Sen. John McCain's campaign finance reform bill. 

This rigging of the scorecard resulted in artificially high scores for liberal elected officials while providing support for the liberal stance on abortion and campaign reform. 

The LCV's scorecard betrays LCV's liberalism and seems to be designed to provide high “environmental” scores to liberal elected officials and lower ones to moderates and conservatives, regardless of their votes on the full range of environmental issues. 

I'm tired of the media promoting liberalism in the guise of protecting the environment. This “scorecard” from the League of Conservation Voters is just one more example. 

Danny W. Critser 

Berkeley