Bravo, PG&E!

Northern California utility Pacific Gas & Electric has pulled out of the US Chamber of Commerce, citing ‘fundamental differences’ with the group’s anti-environmental advocacy, following Duke Energy and Alstom. William Kovacs, a senior vice president at the Chamber, told the LA Times (in an article that is inexplicably irretrievable but relayed by Grist) that the Chamber wanted to put climate change science on trial in the same manner that the science behind natural selection was argued in the Scopes trial. Apparently, he’d like to go the way of William Jennings Bryant.

This move makes complete sense for PG&E, which touts itself as “one of the cleanest utilities in the country” and has had great success using the ‘decoupling’ method (outlined in the middle of this WaPo article) to maintain revenues while encouraging energy conservation. The utility most concentrated service area is the San Francisco Bay Area so the withdrawal will likely raise their standing with their many environmentally-aware consumers, myself included.