The country’s largest grassroots environmental advocacy group, the Sierra Club, plans to throw its support behind Senator Barack Obama on Friday, capping off a week when Senator John McCain unveiled a series of new energy policies that angered environmentalists.
Carl Pope, the executive director of the 1.3 million member group, will announce the endorsement at a joint press conference with the United Steelworkers union in Cleveland. The two organizations are part of a Blue-Green Alliance working to create American jobs and a greener economy.
In an interview, Mr. Pope said that Senator Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, supports the “strongest set of positions that any candidate has ever offered” on the environment.
Mr. Obama favors a cap and trade system aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the United States to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. He has also called for 25 percent of electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2025.
The Sierra Club’s endorsement did not come as a surprise. The environmental group hit Senator John McCain especially hard this week for his proposal to lift the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling for states that want to permit it. In a speech on Wednesday Mr. McCain also proposed building 45 nuclear reactors by 2030, and at a town hall meeting in Springfield, Mo., Mr. McCain seemed to suggest he would be willing to reconsider his position on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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The Sierra Club said it plans to mobilize thousands of volunteers across the country on behalf of Mr. Obama between now and the election.
The 850,000 member United Steelworkers union originally endorsed former Senator John Edwards and, later lent their support to Senator Obama when Mr. Edwards dropped out. The Sierra Club began endorsing presidential candidates in 1984 with its support of Walter Mondale. The group endorsed former Vice President Al Gore in 2000 and Senator John Kerry in 2004. Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat and Obama supporter, will also be on hand at Friday’s endorsement event.
More at linkhttp://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/sierra-club-to-endorse-obama/
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