Jones Touts Credentials as Keeper of Environment

Seeking to define himself on turf perceived as his opponent’s, Republican U.S. Senate nominee Bill Jones told GOP women Tuesday that he was a stronger protector of the environment than incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer.

He said Boxer was active in proposing legislation, but was “inept” in her more than two decades in the House and Senate at getting substantial changes enacted into law in the areas of clean air and water, global warming, offshore oil drilling and alternative sources of fuels.

“Over 22 years, Barbara Boxer cannot point to anything that I am aware that she actually delivered in these arenas,” he told reporters. “That is why we still have the offshore oil issue.... We still have high octane fuel prices. We still have the terrible fires we had.

“Point to one thing where she actually brought resolution to a problem because of her leadership,” said Jones, a San Joaquin Valley farmer, former secretary of state and retired member of the Assembly.

In a speech to the California Federation of Republican Women, Jones played up his own conservationist credentials, saying he had helped win passage of major clean drinking water bond issues in the 1980s and 1990s. Likewise, he said, he is a foe of offshore oil drilling -- though he has supported it in the past, after oil embargoes -- and an advocate of developing fuel alternatives to gasoline and oil.

Responding to questions, Jones conceded that he had not been endorsed by any environmental protection organization. However, he cited the support of the California Farm Bureau Federation, which he called a “major environmental group” because farmers are the first to recognize that “if they don’t take care of natural resources, they don’t stay in business.”

On her election campaign website, Boxer describes herself as an “environmental hero” who has helped protect the California coast from oil drilling, voted to ban development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and blocked the Bush administration from relaxing standards on the permissible amount of arsenic in drinking water.

Jones said Boxer had written legislation “containing the word ‘arsenic.’ ” But he said the proposal had done little more than ask that the issue be looked at and he claimed she ended up voting “against the very bill containing her language.”

Roy Behr, a spokesman for the Boxer campaign, countered that for Jones to suggest he had compiled a better record as a conservationist than Boxer was akin to a “400-pound couch potato challenging the fitness of Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

He said that as a legislator Jones had regularly scored zero on legislative ratings compiled by the League of Conservation Voters. He said Jones’ environmental protection record “shows how highly out of touch Bill Jones is with the majority of California voters.”