What does the Utah Clean Cities Coalition bring to mind? Probably its “Idle Free” campaign to reduce automobile emissions. A commendable program, as are the UCCC’s electric vehicles initiatives — to a point. A point beyond which the public should be concerned.
What many Utahns may not know is that the UCCC is at the same time a “greenwash” collaborator with one of America’s dirtiest energy companies and with an upstart state agency poised to poison Wasatch Front air with pollution from a massive inland port complex on ecologically sensitive land near the Great Salt Lake. Land seized from Salt Lake City by legislators friendly to EDCUtah “Mega Site” developers and the fossil fuel industry.
UCCC trustee James Campbell represents Rocky Mountain Power/PacifiCorp, our monopoly utility that has for years been beating down Utah’s rooftop solar industry in order to control the growth of renewables so its power plants can keep burning coal for the next 10 or 20 years. RMP loves electric vehicles, for those who can afford them, because EVs increase demand for the utility’s dirty energy.
UCCC trustee Jack Hedge, director of the Utah Inland Port Authority, recently fired two spokespersons for West Side communities, communities that aren’t so able to afford EVs and where people live closer to inland port pollution. He replaced them with a developer and the former head of Utah’s fossil fuel-friendly Energy Office: Laura Nelson, who negotiated an agreement with Mexican authorities for export terminal rights at the deep-water port of Ensenada. That’s a backup site for bulk commodity (writ “coal”) exports if Utah can’t litigate Oakland and Richmond, California, into compliance.
The utility and the port authority delight in touting their relationship with Utah Clean Cities Coalition and its ostensibly “green” partners. But underneath the greenwash facade, there’s a not-so-clean-or-green tarnish on all parties to this deception.
Stanley Holmes, Salt Lake City
