Merger Agreement Helped the Environment

I’m still scratching my head after reading Alexander Cockburn’s Dec. 28 commentary, “An Enron Tale of Strange Bedfellows.” The Natural Resources Defense Council was part of a coalition of environmental and consumer groups that negotiated an agreement with merging companies Enron and Portland General Electric on future investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, watershed restoration and low-income energy services. Cockburn is indignant that I said I trusted Enron to execute the agreement. Enron and PGE did indeed meet their merger obligations. Enron left in place a hometown management group with a commitment to improved performance on both environmental and equity issues. Enron’s subsequent decision to leave the utility business, long before its collapse, had no adverse environmental consequences.

There is no connection between Enron’s current calamity and the merger that the NRDC and many others supported conditionally nearly five years ago. Only Cockburn’s overactive imagination could suggest otherwise.

Ralph Cavanagh

Energy Program Director

NRDC, San Francisco