This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The League of Conservation Voters scores Utah's congressional delegation as 2-for-190 in 2015, or near perfect in its opposition to the league's panel of environmental advocates.
The Washington-based nonprofit's annual National Environmental Scorecard grades lawmakers' votes on legislation relating to "energy, climate change, public health, public lands and wildlife conservation, and spending for environmental programs," according to the report.
Utah's senators received a 2 percent grade, its representatives 1 percent.
"We believe the Utah delegation is very out of step with where Americans' values are overall, and where Utahns' values are," said Sara Chieffo, the league's vice president of government affairs.
Sen. Orrin Hatch went 0-fer, as did Reps. Rob Bishop (chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources), Jason Chaffetz and Mia Love.
Sen. Mike Lee offered amendments to the Keystone XL Pipeline Act that would "have a chilling effect on citizen enforcement of the Endangered Species Act" and would "expedite the applications to drill on America's public lands and ... limit the amount of public input in the decision-making process," the league opined.
Both amendments were defeated.
The Utah Senate delegation combined to satisfy the league on just one vote in 25: Lee's opposition to legislation from Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pen., to "fast track" certain international trade deals.
In the House, Utah's four representatives aligned with the league's outlook once in 35 votes — Chris Stewart voted against an amendment to the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act proposed by Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., that Chieffo said would "totally zero out" the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
The league has authored the report annually since 1970. Lifetime scores for Hatch and Lee are 10 percent. Stewart is at 4 percent, Bishop and Chaffetz are at 3 percent, and Love maintained her lifetime score of 0 percent.
Utah and Arizona are the lone Western states in which the league has no office.
"We're seeing Utah perform among the worst of all states, and we think that's important for their constituents to know," Chieffo said.
The league praised President Barack Obama for finalizing the Clean Power Plan — "the single largest step our nation has ever taken to address climate change" — and for rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, in addition to a half-dozen other accomplishments.
"What makes all of this administrative progress not just so impressive but also so necessary is that President Obama accomplished it while simultaneously battling the most anti-environmental Congress in our nation's history," it writes.
The Supreme Court put the Clean Power Plan on hold in early February, granting a stay requested by 27 states, including Utah, who say Obama exceeded his authority and that states shouldn't have to comply with a plan that could eventually get thrown out by the courts.
Last week, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert ordered state environmental regulators to stop working to comply with the Clean Power Plan; The local implementation was still in the discussion phase.
Twitter: @matthew_piper