McCain did have ties to CREA
I would have entitled this post, "Was I Ever Wrong", but Michael Berube already has a trademark out on that one.
I completely missed McCain's part. From an April, 1999 Boston Globe article:
But in the following two years, McCain voted with the environmental lobby only 13 percent of the time, including a zero percent record in 1998, according to a scorecard compiled by the League of Conservation Voters. In response, McCain's spokesman, Howard Opinsky, said the senator had taken a number of steps in those two years that went unnoticed by the league, including backing a national park trust fund, an environmental technology award, the establishment of the Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, and a noise pollution proposal for the Grand Canyon, as well as being named honorary board member of the Coalition of Republican Environmental Activists.
The Coalition of Republican Environmental Activists was the former name for the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, or CREA.
CREA's "honorary board" is the only board of the organization.
During CREA president Italia Federici's November 2005 Senate Indian Affairs Committee sworn testimony, McCain never disclosed his former position in the organization. What's going on here?