The nation's most prominent voice against religious and racial bigotry on Friday condemned the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) for a newsletter article that compared environmentalists to Nazis.

The article, entitled "Hitler's Nazi Party: They were Eco-Extremists," demonstrated "a deplorable jack of judgment" on the part of the BIAW, said Ellen Bovarnick, the Anti-Defamation League's Pacific Northwest Regional Director.

"Any attempt to compare the policies of Hitler and the Nazis, which led to World War II and ultimately the death of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust, to the actions of environmentalists is inappropriate and offensive and has no place in a debate over environmental regulation," Bovarnick added.

The ADL has called on the BIAW to repudiate the article, and to apologize to those it may have offended, especially survivors of the Holocaust.

"While the industry may have concerns about regulation, it is outrageous and false to compare environmentalists and government regulators to Nazis," Bovarnick said. "Such comparisons only serve to trivialize the history of the Holocaust.

The BIAW has been in the news as underwriter - through a front group - of a $500,000 campaign of radio spots denouncing Gov. Christine Gregoire. The group welcomed GOP gubernatorial nominee Dino Rossi on Thursday as featured speaker at its annual meeting.

It spent $1.5 million in 2006 on Washington State Supreme Court campaigns, largely on TV spots that smeared the record of Chief Justice Gerry Alexander. Two BIAW-backed candidates were defeated.

Linking greens to Nazis has become a frequent tactic on hate-talk radio, and among global warming deniers.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, recently likened former Vice President Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" to Adolf Hitler's blueprint book Mein Kampf. Unlike "An Inconvenient Truth," Mein Kampf never won a Nobel Peace Prize.