POLITICO Pro Greens to Landrieu: Good riddance

Environmentalists won’t miss Mary Landrieu.

The Louisiana Democrat, a long-time favorite of her state’s oil and gas industry, drew greens’ ire for her die-hard support for expanded offshore drilling, her opposition to EPA climate regulations and her crusade to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline. So most environmental groups don’t see her loss Saturday to Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy as a setback for their goals — even though Cassidy largely supports the same causes she did and will be part of a GOP Senate majority that vows to thwart President Barack Obama’s climate agenda.


“On environmental issues, I imagine there will be no discernible difference between her and her successor,” anti-Keystone activist Bill McKibben, co-founder of the environmental group 350.org, said in an email before Saturday’s results came in. He wrote, “I’m not a fan of hers because she’s a complete captive of the fossil fuel industry, who are our foes.”

Fellow Keystone opponent Jane Kleeb, founder of the group Bold Nebraska, was just as blunt: “Senator Landrieu never set foot on the soil she was willing to risk and never looked farmers in the eye explaining why she favored foreign oil over their property rights, so no, we will not miss her.”

Landrieu had campaigned on the clout she could wield for oil-centric Louisiana as the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and kept the loyalty of the oil and gas industry until the end — energy industry groups have donated at least $79,500 to her campaign since Nov. 4 even after her disappointing showing on Election Day.

But she found herself abandoned by environmental groups and other progressive organizations, who refused to aid her reelection efforts even as they offered support to other pro-Keystone Democrats whom they viewed as more moderate, such as Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan.

In one final blow to Landrieu’s reelection hopes, green groups mounted an all-out lobbying push last month to block a pro-Keystone bill that would have given her some bragging rights for the run-off. The bill fell one vote short in the Senate, despite her efforts to convince fellow Democrats that her seat hung in the balance.

During the vote, top lobbyists and leaders from the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and 350.org flooded the hallways outside the Senate chamber. When it became clear that the bill had failed, they dutifully thanked the senators who had ensured its demise.

Now greens, who have built an increasingly sophisticated electoral and lobbying operation, are working to shore up support among the liberal wing that will make up a larger proportion of the Senate’s new Democratic minority. League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski is a regular fixture in the Capitol, and Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, who is based in San Francisco, makes frequent trips to Washington to meet with lawmakers. He was seen talking with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) outside the Senate chamber on Thursday.

Landrieu’s loss, nonetheless, reflects the evolving dynamics that will represent a big challenge for environmentalists in the Senate, where Southern Democrats are facing extinction.

“Traditionally, Democrats from the South and the Inter-Mountain West have played an outsize role in shaping energy and environmental legislation,” said Kalee Kreider, a former environmental adviser to Vice President Al Gore. “The loss of any single senator in and of itself isn’t irreparable. However, the total wipe out of Democrats in the Deep South and the near wipe out of moderate Republicans in the Northeast has really changed the Senate in just 20 year’s time. I don’t think this dynamic makes it any easier to pass environmental legislation.”

Cassidy certainly won’t offer environmental groups any friendlier audience: He sponsored a pro-Keystone bill in the House that was identical to Landrieu’s. On the other hand, Landrieu’s place as the energy committee’s top Democrat will be taken by Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, a liberal who voted against Keystone, has sponsored climate legislation and favors stricter regulations on energy markets — and who will be poised to take over as the panel’s chairwoman if Democrats regain control of the Senate in 2016.

Environmentalists’ rejection of Landrieu in the midterm elections stood out from the willingness of groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund and the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund to raise money for other red-state, pro-fossil-fuel Democrats like Begich, Hagan and Georgia Senate candidate Michelle Nunn — all three of whom lost to Republican opponents. Those candidates supported Keystone, but unlike Landrieu were able to convince environmental groups that they were committed to tackling issues like climate change.

Climate activist billionaire Tom Steyer’s super PAC went even further, declining to help Begich, Nunn and Hagan and even publicly toying with running ads against Landrieu for supporting Keystone.

At least some people with ties to the environmental community caution against setting a strict litmus test for candidates.

“The environmentalists are making a big mistake with this purity test for candidates,” said one long-time environmental consultant, who alluded to the way a number of greens supported Ralph Nader instead of Al Gore for president 14 years ago. ”It didn’t work for them in 2000 and it won’t work for them now.”

Only one major environmental group, the Environmental Defense Fund’s political arm, backed Landrieu this cycle. The Environmental Defense Action Fund’s PAC contributed $5,000 to Landrieu’s campaign and helped anchor a fundraiser last summer that yielded around $18,000 for her.

Environmental Defense Action Fund deputy director Joe Bonfiglio said the group supported Landrieu because of her efforts to restore Louisiana’s coastline after the 2010 BP oil spill. He lamented the loss of “a tenacious legislator on one of our big issues,” adding, “That’s no small thing – there is a lot of work ahead of us on coastal restoration.”