Washington – U.S. Rep. Rich ard Pombo, a key backer of plans to speed development of oil shale and sell off public lands, is known for bashing environmentalists as “radicals.” This week, environmental groups helped to thrash Pombo.
The California Republican, chairman of the House Resources Committee, was defeated in his bid for an eighth term by Democrat Jerry McNerney after environmentalists poured $1.5 million into the race.
“We did this to send a signal. The environment matters, and the environmental movement can marshal resources and defeat its enemies,” said Mark Longabaugh, political director for Defenders of Wildlife. “It says you should think twice before you try to drill the Arctic, drill off the coast or or give away land to the mining industry.”
Pombo, a Stetson-wearing rancher from the Central Valley farming town of Tracy, repeatedly stoked the ire of nature groups by targeting the Endangered Species Act. Pombo also pressed proposals to sell public land and encouraged increased oil and gas drilling on the public lands of the Rocky Mountain West.
But it was his support for fast, aggressive development of oil shale on Colorado’s Western Slope that sparked a fight with Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.
“I’m delighted that he lost and we won’t have to deal with him as (committee) chairman,” Salazar said. “The proposals he tried to push through are part of a radical agenda and not what Americans want on their public lands.”
Pombo spokesman Brian Kennedy said the environmentalists’ campaign didn’t come as a surprise.
“When he became chairman three years ago, he sat down with the staff and said, ‘I came to Washington to change things, and they’re going to come after me with everything they have,”‘ Kennedy said.
Pombo was made more vulnerable in 2002 when his largely rural district was redrawn to include more environmentally minded voters in the suburbs of San Francisco and Oakland.
Defenders of Wildlife decided to target Pombo in 2005 when he unveiled his plan to overhaul the species act, Longabaugh said. The League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club and local environmental groups joined in the effort. But many wrote off the race after the Democratic Party’s preferred candidate lost in a June primary.
Conservationists spent $600,000 on anti-Pombo TV ads, fielded eight organizers to knock on 75,000 doors and got actress Jennifer Garner to headline an anti-Pombo rally.
