One of the state's top environmental groups is planning to turn up the heat on lawmakers they say are standing in the way of environmental progress in the Commonwealth.

 

The Environmental League of Massachusetts (ELM) will team up with the nation League of Conservation Voters to form a new Super PAC, the ELM Action Fund, that can spend unlimited amounts of money for or against candidates in next year's 2016 election cycle.

The ELM action fund is determined to be a much more forceful and aggressive player in the coming weeks and months and build muscle for the environmental community as this process goes forward," ELM President George Bachrach told reporters at a Wednesday press conference.

Beyond boosting candidates they consider environmentally-friendly, the Super PAC will develop a "Dirty Dozen" list of opponents - based on their legislative voting record - who they will spend money to oppose.

"In fairness to those legislatures, and you can look up everybody's scores and see who ranks the lowest, but in fairness to them we're putting them on notice that the votes that come up in the next several weeks are going to be important in terms of our determination," Bachrach said.

Bachrach said that 60 percent of the candidates targeted by the LCV in similar "Dirty Dozen" efforts have been defeated.

It's not hard to see who the environmental group is going after. A casual look at the organization's 2013-2014 legislative scorecard, which gives lawmakers a score from 1 to 100 based on a criteria of pro-environment votes, will tell you that only Republicans rank in the bottom twelve slots.

ELM wants to raise and spend $250,000 during next year's legislative elections. They're going to base the list of targets on the results of votes in last year's and the current 2015-2016 legislative session. But that won't stop us from looking at which lawmakers are currently at the bottom of ELM's heap and in their cross-hairs:

With 63 percent rating, according to ELM:

Fred Barrows (R)

Nicholas Boldyga (R)

Randy Hunt (R)

Marc Lombardo (R)

James Lyons (R)

Elizabeth Poirier (R)

Todd Smola (R)

With a 74 percent rating: House Minority Leader Brad Jones (R).

And even though it makes the list as long as 19 slots, these GOP House members all share a 79 percent rating:

Shawn Dooley (R)

Peter Durant (R)

Susan Gifford (R)

Sheila Harrington (R)

Bradford Hill (R)

Steven Howitt (R)

Kevin Kuros (R)

Leonard Mirra (R)

Shaunna O’Connell (R)

Keiko Orrall (R)

David Vieira (R)