Environmental Defense Action Fund supporting Lamar Alexander

photo Gordon Ball and Lamar Alexander are seen in this composite photo.
Arkansas-Tennessee Live Blog

NASHVILLE - A political action committee belonging to one of the nation's largest environmental groups has jumped into Tennessee's U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Lamar Alexander and Democrat Gordon Ball.

But the Environmental Defense Action Fund isn't spending its $246,869 to help Ball, an attorney who often highlights his decades-long legal battle against a North Carolina paper mill's pollution of the Pigeon River.

Instead, the "moderate" green group is throwing the money into television ads to help Alexander.

Federal Election filings show the Environmental Defense Fund's PAC made the six-figure independent expenditure on Monday.

The group says it blends environmental concerns with science and economics. It also has a number of corporate partners, although it says on its website it doesn't accept money from them.

In August, Politico reported the Environmental Defense Action Fund was funding a seven-figure campaign "to aid green-minded Republicans in the midterm elections, part of a longer-term effort to find GOP partners on priorities like climate change."

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