Washington -- A national environmental group today named Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle as one of the top two deniers of climate change in the House of Representatives, and promised to launch an advertising campaign against her re-election.

The National League of Conservation Voters said it would spend $1.5 million on its initial ad campaign against the "Flat Earth Five" aimed at defeating five House members who have raised doubt about global climate change.

Buerkle, R-Onondaga Hill and Rep. Dan Benishek, R-Mich., are the first two House members named to the program. Three others will be singled out by the national group later in the campaign.

The League of Conservation Voters said today that Buerkle made the list because of her statements about the "global warming myth" during the 2010 campaign against former Rep. Dan Maffei, D-DeWitt.

"Rep. Buerkle's extreme views put her at odds with scientists, the Pentagon and her constituents," Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters said in a statement today.

The Washington, D.C.-based group said it will pay for an independent campaign to alert voters to Buerkle's postion through TV ads, direct mail and phone calls. The group says it has about 500,000 supporters nationwide, including 32,000 in New York state.

David Ray, Buerkle's campaign manager, issued a statement in which he did not address the congresswoman's current position on climate change. He said Buerkle is sensitive to environmental concerns.

“Ann Marie Buerkle has always supported clean air and clean water," Ray said. "She's taken the time to meet with and listen to the concerns of constituents who are concerned about the environment. What she doesn’t support is Dan Maffei and Nancy Pelosi’s cap and trade energy tax that would raise electricity rates by 40 percent without doing anything to help the environment.”

After Buerkle expressed her doubts about climate change in 2010, her comments were condemned by local scientists, including Cornelius Murphy Jr., president of the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse.

A Washington Post-Stanford University poll in June found 77 percent of Americans say rising global temperatures are at least partly the result of human activity, while 22 percent said that climate change is the result only of natural causes.

The League of Conservation Voters said today that Buerkle's views are out of touch with her constituents in the 24th Congressional District. Her voting record is the most conservative of New York's 29 House members.

Buerkle's votes on environmental issues have earned a lifetime score of 9 percent out of a possible 100 percent on the League of Conservation Voters National Environmental Scorecard. The annual scorecard rates members of Congress on conservation and clean energy issues.

Jeff Gohringer, a spokesman for the League of Conservation Voters in Washington, said the group has not decided how much of the $1.5 million it will spend against Buerkle during this year's campaign.

Gohringer said the group has already spent more than $2 million in independent campaign expenditures in House and Senate races this year.

Contact Washington Correspondent Mark Weiner at mweiner@syracuse.com or 571-970-3751.