Uber is irritated that UNFK is highlighting its executives’ political contributions to climate deniers

In our recent communications with Uber about its environmental track record, we were contacted by email by company spokesperson Brooke Anderson who said it’s “odd and not really useful” that United for Kindness (UNFK) publishes Uber executives’ individual contributions to the U.S. Congresspeople with the worst environmental track records. 

You can see the information on which Uber was commenting at the bottom of its UNFK page. 

Political contributions by Uber executives include a bit of cash for far right politician Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who claims global warming is “healthy” and Senator Rand Paul, who in a 2017 CNN interview questioned the human role in climate change. Scientists widely agree that climate change is being caused primarily by humans.

Of course, such contribution information has been publicly available for many years through Open Secrets and the Federal Election Commission. To our knowledge, however, the UNFK database is the first to cross reference that data with the League of Conservation Voters scorecard. The scorecard rates the environmental voting track record of each member of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. 

When the employee of a company like Uber individually gives money to the election fund of a U.S. Congressperson with a lifetime League of Conservation Voters score of 20 or below (out of 100), UNFK includes that information on the company’s page. 

Why? UNFK lists both individual and PAC contributions to help members of the public make informed decisions about where to spend their hard earned money. Note: while a company’s corporate PAC giving to Congresspeople with low LCV scores does negatively impact the company’s UNFK score, individual contributions do not.