GREENWASHING ALERT: Gardner – Who Has Failing Grade From Leading Conservation Group – Misleads Coloradans on Record, Again

Gardner Goes on Vacation As Pandemic Rages, Coloradans Wait for Urgent Relief

Yet again, Senator Cory Gardner’s latest TV ad tries to deceive Coloradans about his record of voting with President Trump to sell out our public lands to the highest bidder while failing to act on climate change. In reality, Gardner has been a rubber stamp for Trump’s toxic environmental agenda, earning a failing 11 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters.

“As Coloradans wait for urgent coronavirus relief, Senator Gardner goes on vacation in his latest ad while pulling out all the stops to deceive Coloradans about his abysmal environmental record,” said Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen. “Gardner and Trump have blocked new Colorado wilderness and refused to act on climate change, but facing a tough election, Senator Gardner is trying to greenwash his toxic record. Coloradans won’t be fooled, and they know that John Hickenlooper has always stood up for our public lands -- not just when it’s politically convenient.”

While Mitch McConnell hands Gardner a political favor to try and save his flailing campaign, Gardner continues to get called out for his “desperate attempt” to greenwash his record of “supporting Trump and his anti-conservation agenda at seemingly every turn.” 

Take a look at the headlines Gardner’s deceptive ad leaves out:

• Durango Herald: “Previously, Gardner has voted for budgets proposed by Trump that slash conservation spending, earning him a lifetime score of 11% from the League of Conservation Voters. In 2011, when Gardner was a U.S. representative, he also voted for a budget amendment that would slash funding by 90% for the LWCF, the very entity that would be fully funded by the Great American Outdoors Act.”
  
• CPR: “Gardner wears his support of the Great American Outdoors Act like armor. And he might need it. The League of Conservation Voters gave Gardner’s 2019 voting record a 36 percent. His lifetime score is 11 percent.”
  
• Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: “The political breakthrough is viewed by some as an effort by Trump and McConnell to help Gardner and Daines in competitive re-election campaigns this year.”

• Colorado Politics: “Trump has reportedly offered his support for the bill, as Republicans again seek political credit to avert a situation the president created, including withdrawing tariffs he proposed and resolving border conflicts his orders generated, leading some pundits to characterize the president as simultaneously the arsonist and firefighter.”

Gardner’s greenwashing misses the mark. Here’s a closer look at his record:

REFUSING TO PROTECT COLORADO’S PUBLIC LANDS

• Designation of new Colorado wilderness has been left out of every major public lands bill to pass the Senate during Gardner’s tenure.

• Gardner supported cutting millions from the Land and Water Conservation Fund as recently as 2018 and has voted to virtually eliminate funding for the program.
  
• Gardner refuses to support the CORE Act -- a major wilderness bill to protect 400,000 acres of public land that passed the House last fall. But the bill is “unlikely to see the light of day in the Senate” without Gardner’s support, and he recently decried the collaborative legislation as “a partisan, political tool,” despite widespread grassroots support. 

• While Hickenlooper has long opposed drilling in the Thompson Divide, Gardner has refused to take a position for years.

• Gardner has a long record of voting against Colorado’s public lands, from trying to limit new protections to blocking local input on land management. 

SIDING WITH TRUMP TO SELL OUT OUR PUBLIC LANDS AND NATIONAL PARKS

• Gardner “won’t say if he supports” William Perry Pendley’s nomination to lead the Bureau of Land Management, despite his support for selling off public lands and his long history of climate science denial and xenophobia.

• Gardner has supported Trump’s anti-environment nominees who’ve overseen the largest rollback of protected public lands in U.S. history, dismantled efforts to fight climate change and gutted clean water protections.

• Gardner voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling for the first time ever.

• Hickenlooper helped lead the effort to bring the Outdoor Retailer Show to Colorado -- which left Utah in part because of efforts to rescind Bears Ears National Monument, which Gardner refused to oppose.

FAILING TO STAND UP TO TRUMP’S SCIENCE CENSORSHIP

• Despite touting his role as chair of the Subcommittee on Science in campaign videos, Gardner has not held a hearing or done any meaningful oversight of the Trump administration's science censorship -- including their stunning proposal to limit public health data and Trump’s own attempt to manipulate NOAA forecasting.

• Gardner voted for every one of Trump’s appointees to lead the EPA, like climate denier Scott Pruitt and coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler.

IGNORING CLIMATE CHANGE & MAKING THINGS WORSE

• While Gardner tries to deny his record of refusing to acknowledge the human contribution to climate change, he continues voting to dismantle efforts to fight climate change and make things even worse. 

• Gardner’s pro-polluter votes include letting coal mines off the hook for stream pollution and blocking limits on methane emissions, which were modeled after “gold standard” limits Hickenlooper enacted in Colorado.

• Gardner failed to secure year-end tax credits for clean energy or stand up to Trump’s rollback of emission standards for cleaner cars, which Hickenlooper led the way on in Colorado.

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