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Highlights & Quotes Congressman Steve Pearce (R-NM) is serving his first term in Congress. Shortly after being elected, Pearce joined a short list of other freshman members to be tapped as an assistant majority whip. He serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where he is the vice chairman of the Water, Resources, and Environment Subcommittee and a member of the Aviation Subcommittee. Pearce also sits on the House Committee on Resources and serves on the committee's Energy and Mineral Resources, Forests and Forest Health, and Water and Power subcommittees. Rep. Pearce is the policy chairman of the Republican Party's Western Caucus. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert asked Pearce to tackle senior citizen issues when he assigned Pearce to the newly formed Prescription Drug Task Force. Hastert also tapped him to be a leader on the Task Force for Affordable Natural Gas. (1) (2)

Pearce was a pilot in the Air Force, and flew missions into Vietnam from the Philippines. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal. (1) Despite his frequently stated support for veterans, one veterans group, Support the Vets, observed: "Talk of supporting veterans is cheap. We need action, not talk. New Mexico veterans are urged to contact Representative Steve Pearce and urge him to reconsider his position." The group cites a report in the Alamogordo Daily News in which Pearce admitted that he did not engineer passage of HR 303, the House Discharge Petition, despite his cosponsorship of the resolution, because the Republican Party leadership did not support quick approval of the veterans disability compensation legislation. According to an article by Paul Balaich in the Alamogordo daily: "Pearce has often stated that he is a veterans advocate and will work hard to secure passage of legislation to meet the many unmet needs of New Mexico and American veterans. Perhaps Mr. Pearce needs to be reminded that he needs to stick to advocacy for veterans who worked hard to make him the Congressman from New Mexico District #2. Loyalty to the Republication administration is an admirable thing; however, veterans of his district need to have the same kind of loyalty. Mr. Pearce, who is a Vietnam veteran, is on record that he supports legislation on behalf of the veterans community." (3)

Steve Pearce is the owner/operator of Lea Fishing Tools, an oil services company providing oil well repairs. Lea Fishing Tools, which employs 40 workers, has assets of $1.5 million. (4) Pearce has strong connections to the oil and gas industry, and this business sector is his highest source of campaign contributions. Rep. Pearce advocates oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and he signed the House Energy Policy Act of 2003, which would have provided an $18.7 billion tax break over 10 years to the oil, coal, and nuclear power industries. He also supports oil and gas drilling in Otero Mesa, a 500,000-acre grassland identified by Congress as suitable for official wilderness designation. Oil and gas exploration of Otero Mesa is opposed by a bipartisan coalition of ranchers and environmentalists in New Mexico. Governor Bill Richardson signed an executive order in early 2004 opposing drilling on Otero Mesa and directed his Cabinet members not to approve drilling permitting procedures. (4)

Pearce introduced HB 2603, a bill designed to undermine the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and a related federal court ruling upholding the designation of 157 miles of the middle Rio Grande River as critical habitat for the silvery minnow. HR 2603 limits the authority of the secretary of the interior to divert federal water to satisfy the requirements of the ESA. Pearce opposes the reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves in southwestern New Mexico because "it is harming the economy of Western New Mexico."

Congressman Pearce voted in favor of H.R. 1904, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, a bill calling for the elimination the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirement mandating alternative environment management strategies. The bill also restricts the rights of citizens to appeal logging projects and limits time for judicial review. According to Pearce, "Inflexible environmental extremists create a tremendous problem for our environment by opposing legislation that will dramatically increase the forest health." (5) The freshman congressman also opposed a bill known as the CARE Act of 2003, which was designed to increase the flow of charitable contributions, because it contained a provision that would have authorized tax breaks for those who sold land or water to nature conservancy groups. (8)

According to Kevin Bixby of the Southwest Environmental Center: "Through his votes on the House Resources Committee, he [Pearce] has quickly joined the ranks of the most anti-environmental members of Congress. He recently voted for the disingenuously titled Healthy Forests Restoration Act. Under the guise of protecting communities from fire, this bill would actually promote logging of large, fire resistant trees in the backcountry while rolling back environmental safeguards, cutting out public review, and doing little to reduce flammable materials in the immediate vicinity of homes. He also voted, in the name of national security, to weaken key federal protections for endangered wildlife. He was instrumental in working behind the scenes to get the Bureau of Land Management to change its longstanding wilderness policy--a decision that opens up millions of acres of our public lands to oil drilling, mining, off-road vehicle use and other destructive activities." (6)

Representative Pearce voted with the congressional majority to approve an $89.5 billion tax-cut plan that disproportionately benefits the wealthiest sectors. He also introduced a motion to raise the tax break proposed by the Bush administration from $89,000 to $105,000 for individuals with incomes above $1 million. Taxpayers with incomes less than $50,000 would have received even less than Bush's tax break under the Pearce plan. For his efforts, Steve Pearce received the annual "Hero of the Taxpayer Award" from the Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) organization, a right-wing taxpayer group directed by Grover Norquist and opposed to all federal, state, and local tax increases. He received an overall score of 95% on the ATR voting scoreboard. (7)

President Bush visited New Mexico three times to speak at fundraisers for Steve Pearce. Vice President Cheney has also spoken at fundraisers for Pearce, who is an outspoken supporter of the Iraq War. Rep. Pearce voted in support of the president's policy initiatives 98% of the time in 2003.

Pearce received a 100% favorable voting record from the Christian Coalition in 2003. In 2003 he received 0 ratings for his voting record from the following national organizations: Americans for Support of Separation of Church and State, National Committee for an Effective Congress, Public Citizen Congress Watch, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel, Federation of American Immigration Reform, Planned Parenthood, and Population Connection. He received a score of 8 out of 100 from NETWORK, which is a Catholic social justice lobby and network. (10)

Campaign Finance

Political Action Committee (PAC) Contributions (9)

Sector

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.