We’ve had Pacific Power as our power company for almost 14 years. As soon as we signed up, we also signed up for their Blue Sky program, in which we’d pay more for our electricity, but a high proportion of our electric power was to be from renewables, and there was to be habitat restoration; and more.
Now, I’m not an utter fool: I know that dollars and electrons are fungible, that a lot of Pacific Power’s electricity was and is coal-fired, and so on. I also thought that this tiny consumer (me) might signal the importance he assigns to environmental causes. We also installed photovoltaics, and Pacific Power was nicely cooperative with net-metering—maybe out of principle, or because it was just Oregon state law.
Pacific Power doesn’t care much. Or so it seems to me.
In the 2020 federal cycle, Pacific Power (Pacificorp PAC) gave about ten times as much to Republicans as they did to Democrats. The amount they gave to my Congressman, Peter DeFazio, was minus $2500, which I assume is money he returned to them, or that they clawed back. Worse, Pacific Power has been a supporter of the notorious Art Robinson, climate change denier (HIV/AIDS denier, too!), and now (with redistricting), my Oregon State Senator.
So I was kinda pissed that my fungible extra dollars were funding RWNJs and climate change deniers.
I messaged Pacific Power several times and got no response—and really did not expect to.
But today, I messaged them, signing out of the program. I’ll take the dollars I save and steer them toward environmental causes and candidates. Starting with Peter DeFazio.*
If you are in a western state, you might have Pacific Power. Maybe you’ll want to interact with them.
One further note: my headline indicates that I stopped supporting greenwashing; well, no: lots of corporations I inevitably use continue to greenwash. I try to take them to to task when I can. Real climate action has to take place at the national and international level, but I’d like to be just a teeny-tiny bit less complicit.
*Also thanks to Oregon’s redistricting, I’m no longer to be in Peter’s district. I’m now to be in CD-2, which is about R+26. Sucks.
