Some extreme environmentalists can’t help themselves when it comes to attacking their opponents for listening to customers and not the demands of special interests like themselves. This was demonstrated by the protest yesterday (accompanied by radio ads in the Seattle market) by the Sierra Club against Puget Sound Energy (PSE). And what was the sin of the utility that provides electricity to Washingtonians in eight counties? Not raising their rates to buy the type of energy approved by the Sierra Club.
As noted in the Olympian, the Sierra Club “gave the privately owned utility higher grades for effort – including an A-minus for use of wind energy, B-minus for solar and B-plus for energy efficiency programs.” But because PSE also provides inexpensive power it purchases from coal-fired plants in Montana, the extremists went on the attack with the radio ads urging people to sign an anti-PSE petition, which they evidently delivered in a place where they could get media attention– in the Capitol Rotunda in Olympia.
The stunt also highlighted that the Sierra Club was essentially demanding the same thing that Jay Inslee is demanding in his drive to be the nation’s “greenest” governor – that Washington utilities need to bow under to government pressure, not economic forces, when deciding where to purchase their power. The paper wrote that “Gov. Jay Inslee issued an executive order in April in his quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and he ordered agencies to work with utilities toward ending the use of coal power in Washington.”
To its credit, PSE pointed out that its customers preferred “to afford the bill at the end of the month,” as opposed to listening to the Sierra Club and purchasing more expensive power to make the extremists feel better.
