Enviro Lobby Takes a New Tack This Legislative Session

"SEATTLE (KPLU) - At the start of every legislative session, the state's environmental groups lay out their top four priority measures. And in recent years, they'd been very successful at getting most of them passed - until last session. Now -- as the legislature kicks off a new year -- the green's agenda is more modest.

With a slumping economy and a budget in meltdown, lawmakers last year balked at sweeping bills to combat climate change and factor global warming into land use planning. In fact, a lot of the enviros' lobbying energy went into beating back an attempt to change the renewable energy initiative that voters approved in 2006.

This session, Clifford Traisman, the lobbyist for the Washington Environmental Council and Washington Conservation Voters, says environmentalists are taking a different approach..."