From the desk of the U.S. Chamber

Over the last several weeks, we have seen a great deal of coverage within the green community of major national and international corporations leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of their stated position on climate change. PG&E, Exelon, and Apple (among others) all left the Chamber and Nike left the board. The Chamber's response? A few companies leaving doesn't change anything. The Yes Men held a fake news conference forcing them to restate their opposition to strong climate legislation. Result? The Chamber sues the Yes Men and uses them to raise money. But now it seems that all this pressure has had an effect after all.

With mark-up beginning in the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee (and the Republican members refusing to participate) the Chamber released a letter to the committee's Chairman Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Minority Ranking Member Senator James Inhofe (R-OK). In the letter, R. Bruce Josten, the Chamber's executive Vice President for Government Affairs, writes that the Chamber of Commerce "believes climate change is an important issue for this Congress to address." He then goes on to extol the virtue of bipartisanship especially as displayed in the recent New York Times op-ed by Senators Kerry and Graham. Unfortunately, the Chamber's proposed solutions revolve around "core principles" such as turning the United States into the "Saudi Arabia of clean coal" (more on that fallacy here).

On its face, this letter seems like an unremarkable statement by a conservative organization to encourage funding for continued fossil fuel development in climate legislation. In context, however, this letter shows (at least) two things:

1. The stances taken by responsible American businesses large and small are making a difference. Despite the Chamber's claims that they represent 3 million businesses (more like a tenth of that), their claims to be the "voice of business" ring hollow when American businesses and local chambers continue to come out saying that the U.S. Chamber doesn't speak for them. With so many small businesses and major corporations urging climate legislation passage sooner than later, suddenly the "voice of business" has to stop talking and start listening.
2. We need to keep speaking out to our Senators about what strong climate legislation should look like. The climate bill absolutely should be written and passed with real bipartisan cooperation. That doesn’t mean, however, that we need to give up major concessions such as Clean Air Act's authority to crack down on dirty coal. We have to keep contacting our Senators, especially those on the fence regarding the bill, to tell them to keep those important items in the bill.