Green group targets Sen. Scott Brown with $1.8 million ad buy

The League of Conservation Voters is spending $1.85 million to target Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) environmental record with a new television advertisement running in the freshman lawmaker’s home state.

The environmental group blasts Brown in the ad for voting in May against Democrat-backed legislation to eliminate tax breaks for the largest oil companies. The bill fell well short of the 60 votes necessary for passage.

The ad calls on Brown’s constituents to pressure the lawmaker to support repealing oil tax breaks if the issue resurfaces in the Senate. Liberal Democrats are pushing the deficit-reduction supercommittee to eliminate oil tax breaks, but the proposal faces major resistance from Republicans.

A spokeswoman for the group said the ads will start Tuesday and run for up to a month on broadcast and cable television in the Boston area.

The League of Conservation Voters also takes aim at the senator for receiving campaign contributions from the oil industry and for voting to delay Environmental Protection Agency climate change regulations. Brown received a zero percent score on the group's 2010 National Environmental Scorecard.

“Scott Brown’s gone to Washington. And something’s gone horribly wrong,” the ad says. “Brown sided with big oil — taking thousands from oil companies just weeks before he voted to keep their special tax breaks.”

The league's spokeswoman says the advertisement is about “public education and legislative accountability,” not the Massachusetts Senate race.

The advertisement comes as Brown is facing off against Democrat Elizabeth Warren in a close race to keep his seat.

A UMass-Lowell/Boston Herald poll released in early October showed that Brown is in a dead heat with Warren, a Harvard professor who was tapped by President Obama to set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Jim Barnett, Brown’s campaign manager, called on Warren to denounce the advertisements Tuesday.

“This dirty political ad is clearly intended to benefit Professor Elizabeth Warren, and it’s shameful that this campaign has so quickly gone into the gutter,” Barnett said in a statement. “Professor Warren needs to strongly denounce the negative politics behind this ad and call on the League of Conservation Voters to immediately take it down.”

—This story was updated at 11:57 a.m. and 6:24 p.m. Josh Lederman contributed.