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Representative Lloyd Doggett of Austin voted for the environment 100 percent of the time in the 109th Congress, according to the annual Congressional Scorecard on major environmental issues released today by Environment Texas. 

Environment Texas is distributing the individual Congressional scorecards to tens of thousands of households in Texas as part of its door-to-door campaign to pass legislation in Congress requiring a minimum amount of electricity come from clean, renewable energy sources.

"Congressman Doggett has again and again put the environment ahead of special interests. In the 109th Congress he successfully fought efforts to expand off-shore oil drilling, defended protections for endangered species like the polar bear and the recently recovered bald eagle, and worked to make polluters pay to clean up contaminated groundwater," said Environment Texas Director Luke Metzger. "These scorecards are an important tool to educate the public about the voting records of their elected officials and to honor public officials like this that have a record of putting the environment first."

"I appreciate the vigorous advocacy of Environment Texas," said Congressman Doggett, a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. "Many of the environmental accomplishments of the last Congress involved stopping bad legislation. In this new Congress, we finally have an opportunity to promote modest improvements - with incentives for plug-in hybrids, solar energy and other renewable fuels as well as a long overdue strengthening of vehicle mileage standards."

In addition to tracking such key environmental votes as protecting the purity of our air and water; reducing global warming pollution; promoting alternative energy use; and increasing mileage standards for vehicles, the scorecards also list information about campaign contributions, biographical data, past Environment Texas scores, and telephone numbers for citizens to contact their elected officials.

"We applaud Rep. Doggett for being a hero for the environment.  He was the only member of Congress from Texas to receive a 100 percent score for consistently voting to protect the environment," said Metzger.

With the help of Rep. Doggett, the 110th Congress is making progress in several key areas. Already, the House of Representatives has voted to cut billions of dollars in subsidies to big oil and the Senate has voted to raise gas mileage standards for the first time in over 20 years.

"We urge other members of the Texas congressional delegation to join with Rep. Doggett and work to strengthen our environmental laws-to stop global warming pollution, move America towards a cleaner energy future, and clean up America's most treasured waterways," concluded Metzger.

The scorecard and key to the votes scored within can be viewed online at www.EnvironmentTexas.org. The percentages for the Texas delegation are listed below.

Environment Texas is a nonprofit, nonpartisan environmental advocacy organization.