The League of Conservation Voters, which is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar campaign to elect climate-friendly candidates, has hired the Center for American Progress's Daniel J. Weiss to oversee its climate and elections program.
Weiss, a three-decade veteran of the green scene, will oversee what the group is pledging will be a far-reaching and deep-pocketed campaign. LCV and its affiliates spent $14 million last cycle and expect to top that this time around.
"Dan has the skills, creativity, and experience to help us support environmental champions and take on climate-change deniers," said LCV president Gene Karpinski. "We're excited to have him join our team at a time of unprecedented growth and success for our organization."
Weiss most recently served as a senior fellow at CAP and the director of the group's clean-energy and climate program. He also served as political director for the Sierra Club for eight years, where he oversaw its then-record $9 million Environmental Voter Education Campaign in 2000.
His hiring comes as big money is flowing from environmental interests ahead of the 2014 midterms. LCV's Give Green campaign has already raised $3 million — a record for the campaign — for candidates in high-profile races like the Iowa and New Hampshire Senate campaigns. And billionaire Tom Steyer's NextGen Climate aims to inject $100 million to defeat Republican candidates in seven Senate and gubernatorial races.
