Pro-carbon cap businesses flex their muscles

1Sky works closely with businesses that want serious climate legislation completed this year. Today, Gap Inc., eBay Inc. and Symantec Corp. joined the coalition of business leaders that want a cap on pollution now:

Gap Inc., eBay Inc. and Symantec Corp. said today that they are joining BICEP, a corporate coalition that is lobbying Congress to pass by year's end a mandatory, economy-wide cap-and-trade program to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

The Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy group is also urging Congress to adopt a national renewable portfolio standard, or RPS, requiring that 20 percent of U.S. electricity be generated from wind, solar and other renewable resources by 2020.

BICEP's renewable portfolio target would increase to 30 percent by 2030, representatives from the companies explained today in Washington, D.C. The coalition would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, a target consistent with the Obama administration's plan.

`We have a president, Barack Obama, who believes we do not need to choose between a green economy and a green environment," U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said at the BICEP event, which was coordinated by the investor advocacy group Ceres.

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