One hundred fifty-seven (157) members of the U.S. House or Senate voted in the public interest at least 80 percent of the time between January 22, 2003 and March 16, 2005, with 33 members scoring 100 percent, according to the annual Congressional Scorecard for U.S. Senators and Representatives on major public interest issues released today by U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG). One hundred ninety-three (193) members of the House or Senate had scores of 10 percent or below, with 96 members scoring 0 percent on major public interest issues.

U.S. PIRG and the state PIRGs are distributing the individual Congressional Scorecards to hundreds of thousands of households across the country as part of their door-to-door campaign to work with Congress to stop the dirty, dangerous energy bill and to promote clean, safe energy policy.

"At the behest of special interests, Congress has voted to allow clear-cutting in our national forests and weaken consumer protections, and has failed to cut global warming pollution, failed to increase automobile fuel economy, and failed to make polluters pay for toxic waste cleanups," said U.S. PIRG Executive Director Gene Karpinski. "These scorecards are an important tool to educate the public about the voting records of their elected officials and to help citizens hold those officials accountable."

In addition to tracking such diverse public interest votes as protecting the Clean Air Act; protecting the Arctic Refuge from drilling; preventing unfair credit card practices; and increasing access to affordable prescription drugs, the scorecards also list information about campaign contributions, biographical data, past PIRG scores, and telephone numbers for citizens to contact their elected officials.

"We applaud the 157 members who scored 80 percent or more for consistently voting in the public interest," said Karpinski. "We are particularly disappointed in the 193 members who consistently voted to put special interests before public health and safety and scored 10 percent or below."

Members who received 100 percent on the PIRG scorecard were:

Rep. Tammy Baldwin (WI-2)
Rep. Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
Sen. Barbara Boxer (CA)
Rep. Lois Capps (CA-23)
Sen. Hillary Clinton (NY)
Sen. Jon Corzine (NJ)
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (TX-25)
Rep. Sam Farr (CA-17)
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (AZ-7)
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-2)
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH-9)
Rep. James Langevin (RI-2)
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (NJ)
Rep. Barbara Lee (CA-9)
Rep. Nita Lowey (NY-18)
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
Rep. James McGovern (MA-3)
Rep. Michael McNulty (NY-21)
Sen. Patty Murray (WA)
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY-8)
Rep. John Olver (MA-1)
Rep. Major Owens (NY-11)
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)
Rep. Tim Ryan (OH-17)
Rep. Janice Schakowsky (IL-9)
Rep. Hilda Solis (CA-32)
Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark (CA-13)
Rep. John Tierney (MA-6)
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (MD-8)
Rep. Melvin Watt (NC-12)
Rep. Henry Waxman (CA-30)
Rep. Anthony Weiner (NY-9)
Sen. Ron Wyden (OR)

"With a few bright spots like the House's rejection of subsidized roadbuilding and logging in the Tongass National Forest, the 109th Congress is continuing the anti-public interest history of recent years," continued Karpinski. "The Senate voted to let industries off the hook from paying for their toxic waste clean-up; the House rejected efforts to strengthen consumer protections from electric company price gouging; and the House and Senate failed to decrease our dependence on foreign oil by increasing the fuel economy of vehicles."

"We urge members of Congress to strengthen our environmental laws - clean up polluting power plants, preserve our last wild forests, and defend Superfund and America's other environmental protections," concluded Karpinski.

The scorecard and key to the votes scored within can be viewed online at http://www.uspirg.org.

U.S. PIRG is the national advocacy office for the state Public Interest Research Groups. State PIRGs are nonprofit, nonpartisan public interest advocacy groups.