EcoWatch recently published a piece, "Four Things to know about Mike Pence's Environmental Record:
1. His environmental score as congressman: Zero
Unlike his boss, Vice President Pence actually has a long and specific history on environmental issues.
As congressman, he voted for pro-environment positions just four percent of the time, according to the League of Conservation Voters scorecard.
That means he chose the path of stronger health and environmental protections, on average, once every 25 times he had the option. His annual score peaked in 2003 at lucky 13 percent.
During half his years in Congress, he earned a zero. In short, he spent his time in the House representing the view that polluters should have few restrictions and clean energy should get less support.
2. As governor, he sided with polluters
Pence continued on the same track as governor of Indiana.
He and the legislature canceled the Energizing Indiana program, which reportedly resulted in energy savings of about 11 million megawatt hours, significant cost savings and nearly 19,000 new jobs.
Energizing Indiana was established with support from the state's previous Republican governor, Mitch Daniels, so it was far from a program pushed by wild-eyed environmentalists.
3. He's a foe of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
In a 2014 opinion piece in the Indianapolis Star, Pence argued against two critical EPA pollution limits.
He opposed the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard, which limits toxins that damage the brains of development of children before and after birth.
Pence also attacked the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which protects states from pollution that drifts across borders. His criticisms were based on traditional scare tactics about the economic impact of these safeguards—which have since been proven false.
4. He rejects accepted climate science
Finally, Pence apparently disagrees with NASA, the National Academies of Science and all major American scientific organizations on climate change.
In 2009, for instance, he told MSNBC inaccurately, "I think the science is very mixed on the subject of global warming."
Unsurprisingly, as governor of Indiana he sued the EPA to block the Clean Power Plan, the Obama-era landmark plan to reduce climate pollution from power plants.
Mike Pence said this on Wednesday to the National Association of Manufacturers:
“You know, one independent study found that the Paris Accord would have actually cost the U.S. economy more than 6.5 million manufacturing jobs in the next 25 years, while giving countries like China and India virtually a free pass.” Pence also said, “He approved the Keystone and Dakota pipelines early in this administration and the Dakota Pipeline is already rolling and Keystone is being built as we speak. President Trump is working every day to make sure that American manufacturers have affordable, abundant, and reliable energy that you need to power your factories and power our future.”
Those “independent studies” come in handy, don’t they, when you’ve got a captive audience that wants to hear exactly what your non-existent study said. The vice president is the only member of the administration that can’t be fired. This one is a serious threat to our nation and to our environment.