Chenoweth Crowned As ‘Eco-Thug’ Sierra Club Gives Monthly Honor To Idaho Republican

Calling her a shameless foe of the environment, the Sierra Club is bestowing its “Eco-Thug” of the month award on U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth.

The Idaho Republican isn’t exactly distraught over the award, given in the May/June Sierra Magazine.

“When I told her about it, she said ‘I’ll wear it as a badge of honor,”’ said Chenoweth staff member Khris Bershers.

Bershers says the “award” is merely political.

Southern Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Crapo “votes the same way she does, but he isn’t a freshman running in a tough race” so he doesn’t get the same attention.

Chenoweth is opposed in the primary by Nampa physician William Levinger.

Democrats Dan Williams, of Boise, and Matt Lambert, of Murray, are battling for the right to oppose the winner of that race.

The Sierra Club started the award last year and first gave it to Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, said Jim Baker, who runs a Sierra Club office in Pullman. Young advocates opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Like Young, “Chenoweth has brought a lot of inflammatory rhetoric to the environmental debate and has done a lot to reduce environmental protection for families,” Baker said.

The most notable examples include Chenoweth’s support for a new version of the Clean Water Act - passed by the House and pending in the Senate - that is so bad environmentalists call it the “Dirty Water Act,” Baker said.

Then there’s the timber salvage bill that suspends all environmental laws for logging on Forest Service land.

The Sierra Club, Chenoweth staff says, is trying to turn this into a personality debate, and not focus on the issues.

Chenoweth “considers herself an environmentalist,” Bershers said.

“She hates going into the forest and seeing unhealthy trees and such stringent regulations that you can’t get anything out while it’s worth anything,” Bershers said.

“She’d love to take credit for the timber salvage law - but the president signed it.”

As for the Clean Water Act, Chenoweth was working to ensure the government got permission to map wetlands from a property owner, not to try and undo environmental protection, Bershers said.

, DataTimes MEMO: IDAHO HEADLINE: Sierra Club gives Rep. Chenoweth ‘Eco-Thug’ title