Deb Callahan, League of Conservation Voters

Deb Callahan is president of the League of Conservation Voters, based in Washington, D.C.

Well, I'm smack in the middle of my West Coast odyssey to spread the political and environmental message to Western voters. Day three has proven to be packed with as much punch as the previous two days, but what a gratifying feeling it is when you succeed.

Waking up in the warm California sun, I dialed into my first appointment, a morning call to Michael Jackson's radio talk show here in Los Angeles. The KTLA host had decided that the topic for the day would be Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. While I believe that Nader is a great friend to the environment, and I applaud him for making the environment a central theme of his campaign, his chances of winning in November are slim -- a fact Nader himself admits.

The environmental stakes in the 2000 elections are painfully clear. Already, anti-environment allies are discussing ways to weaken public health and environmental protections under a George W. Bush administration. For voters who want clean air, clean water, and a natural legacy for future generations, only Al Gore and Joe Lieberman can legitimately carry the environmental banner all the way to the White House. This is a winner-take-all election, and while Nader may get 5 percent of the vote, he won't get 5 percent of the power. I was quite pleased to hear three self-proclaimed liberals call in to voice the same opinion.

My next stop for the day was in my old neighborhood right outside L.A. I could not have been more pleased to be working on my home turf against one of LCV's own Dirty Dozen candidates, Rep. Jim Rogan. The event, which we held in conjunction with Handgun Control, highlighted Rogan's failure to protect Los Angeles children when it came to gun control and environmental legislation. Let me throw out just a few facts:

While in the California Assembly, Jim Rogan voted to weaken the cutting-edge California Clean Air Act. He also voted to replace mandatory air pollution reduction standards with unenforceable standards that would fail to protect the 1 million men, women, and children with respiratory illnesses. Everyone knows that Los Angeles ranked number one in the nation for health risks from air pollution in 1998, and was second only to Houston in 1999. It is beyond me that Rogan voted to prevent regulators from informing citizens about high levels of smog in their communities. He also voted to prevent state regulators from setting higher air quality standards than federal standards.

I felt enormous satisfaction in exposing Rogan's votes against clean air and water and gun control legislation on a playground I may have run through as a child. I also felt the satisfaction of knowing that Los Angeles residents care about the smoggy air and the toxics in their water -- not only did local papers attend our event, but so did television stations and community leaders.

The rest of my afternoon was taken up with several interviews and meetings with reporters interested in the Rogan event. I also spoke with reporters who wanted to hear about the dismal environmental record of California's 36th District Rep. Steve Kuykendall.

Without time to catch my breath, I'll head off to Seattle for the second leg of our Toxic Texas Tour. I'll be traveling with two women from Houston and Clear Lake, Texas, who are working to no avail to get the governor's office and Texas's environmental agency -- members of which are appointed by Bush -- to address pollution problems in their communities. We're going to bring a little twang to the Northwest and two-step all over George Bush's terrible environmental record. I can't wait.

Until later,

D.