Misleading Impression Created About Votes on Environment

Your front-page article on the greening of Orange County’s conservative legislators (March 11) was provocative but less than professional, inasmuch as the author took as gospel a survey designed by an environmental extremist group.

Seven out of 18 bills listed in the article--as though they provide “proof” that our legislators opposed “good” environmental bills--were so lacking in balance as to be vetoed by the governor. The survey excerpt you printed gave neither the vote tallies nor any adequate information on which to judge whether the bills deserve passage into law. The single-sentence summary makes them all “sound” like motherhood and apple pie.

One wonders how your writer went about choosing these 18 out of “the 210 ‘key’ environmental” bills (since 1984).

Aside from this dubious claim, it is unfortunately the case that every year, the liberal lawmakers introduce tons of “environmental” bills that push all the trendy buttons but lack the slightest concern for jobs, economic productivity and California’s ability to compete in the global marketplace.

It’s obviously easy for these Democrat-oriented groups to devise a survey by selecting the most onerous environmental legislation, which is then used for partisan purposes against Republicans. What voting against or abstaining on such bills indicates is an insistence on balanced and responsible approaches to protecting every dimension of our quality of life.

VIRGINIA LAVAN

Mission Viejo