About 40 major corporations — led by Microsoft, Dow, Nike and Duke Energy — have written to President Obama, urging him to do everything he can to pull out some kind of climate deal in Copenhagen.
Here is the full text of the letter:
December 15, 2009
The Honorable Barack Obama
President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We are major U.S.-based companies, many of which are attending COP-15, urging your leadership in helping to secure a robust international agreement now to address global climate change. This agreement has to include significant near- and long-term emissions reductions targets and strong finance provisions, with a substantial commitment of new long-term finance from developed nations, including the United States, following on the “fast start” commitments that already have been made. Such provisions also should consist of a structure for the long term and should leverage private sector investments. An international agreement also must facilitate clean technology development and transfer, with appropriate intellectual property protections. Such an agreement will provide the market certainty that will unleash the investments needed to create jobs and enhance U.S. competitiveness.
We must put the United States on the path to significant emissions reductions, a stronger economy, and a new position of leadership in the global effort to stabilize our climate. The costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of action. Our environment and economy are at stake. In addition, millions of people in developing and low-lying nations are at risk from climate and related economic dislocations, which further pose geopolitical threats. These factors highlight the urgency for the Administration to achieve a global deal in the coming days that moves us ever closer toward a legally-binding agreement that will protect us and future generations.
Many businesses are doing their part by creating innovative technologies and reducing their carbon footprints, as well as implementing complementary efficiency and renewable energy measures. However, a “sufficiently ambitious, effective and globally equitable deal [is essential to] create the conditions for transformational change in our economy and deliver the economic signals that companies need,” if they are to invest in a low carbon future.[1]
The urgency to act is clear and the need for strong leadership is paramount. We pledge to support your leadership efforts in helping secure a strong global agreement. Moreover, businesses should provide input into the negotiating process to ensure that the policies being developed will not create unintended consequences and will maximize opportunities for innovation. We view the latest bipartisan discussions being led by Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman as critical to domestic action, and pledge our support for their continued efforts in the weeks and months ahead, too.
We thank you in advance for helping to protect our economic, environmental and national security interests for the future. Your forceful leadership is essential to securing an international deal to address climate change in Copenhagen. We look forward to working with you in the coming days and going forward following the Copenhagen conference.
Sincerely,
Aspen Skiing Company
Ben & Jerry’s
Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE)
Clif Bar and Company
Dow Chemical
Duke Energy
eBay
Eileen Fisher
Gap Inc.
GroSolar
Ingersoll Rand
Jones Lang LaSalle
Jupiter Oxygen Corporation
Levi Strauss & Co.
Lykes Brothers, Inc.
Microsoft
MissionPoint Capital Partners
Nike
National Grid
PG&E
PSEG
Seventh Generation
Solazyme, Inc.
Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA)
Starbucks
Stonyfield Farm
Sun Microsystems
Symantec
The North Face
Timberland
Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy (DUK), wants to own every piece of the smart grid, all the way down to the energy portals in customers’ homes and the solar panels on their roofs.
After all, the utility is developing the technology to make all those systems perform at optimal levels – and Duke Energy has access to more capital than a family trying to save for sending their kids to college, after all, Rogers said Wednesday at the GreenBeat conference in San Mateo, Calif.
So instead of relying on customers to buy their own home energy systems, “I’m going to own the batteries, I’m going to invest in the homes,” he said. “I’m going to redefine the boundaries of the business.”
That’s one of the ways that Duke, which plans to spend $1 billion over five years on smart grid projects, is bucking predominant trends among utilities in the United States.
While Duke is definitely one of the more environmentally friendly old-school energy companies, I’m still not comfortable with the approach they are taking. Part of the appeal of distributed power generation is the ability of consumers to own the means of generation themselves, in order to stop paying exorbitant rents to corporations.
With that being said, I’m glad Duke is making significant investments in smart grid technology and renewables. I just hope they modify their approach a bit as these efforts scale up.
Update — A friend emails to point out that utility ownership of rooftop solar installations is the only realistic way these types of installations can scale in the near-term, given cost barriers. Point taken.
The hits keep coming for the embattled United States Chamber of Commerce. On Saturday, I wrote about the Chamber’s overwhelming hypocrisy on climate legislation:
In the last few weeks a diverse group of activist, NGO and labor campaigns have launched to escalate the pressure on the Chamber and its member companies. Here is a brief summary of current efforts:
The Natural Resources Defense Council has been leading the fight. In addition to Pete Altman’s prolific coverage of the story as it develops, they have launched a website — whodoesthechamberrepresent.org — to ask the question: “Who Does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Really Represent?”
Credo Mobile sent an email to their customers on Thursday with the subject line “Earth to Chamber of Commerce: You’re killing me”:
We can’t let this stand. Help us keep up the momentum and join us in asking every CEO serving on the Chamber of Commerce board to quit the Chamber and renounce its radical stance.
The science is clear. And the Chamber is feeling the heat.
Kevin Grandia applied pressure directly to Toyota two weeks ago, calling out the company’s inconsistency in a piece at DeSmogBlog:
If Toyota is genuinely committed to sustainability as they say they are, then they can can take their lead from Nike, Exelon and others and stop supporting the US Chamber and their attack on the Obama administration’s clean energy and climate change reforms. If they don’t leave the US Chamber, then we know where their motivations truly lie.
Move On followed up on Grandia’s pressure on Toyota, writing in an email blast to members on Friday:
If Toyota is as “green” as they claim, why are they supporting a massive effort to kill President Obama’s clean energy plans?
Toyota needs to know consumers won’t stand for this. Can you ask Toyota to quit the Chamber of Commerce? If you’ve owned a Toyota, be sure to mention it when you call.
If major companies like Toyota quit the Chamber, members of Congress will be less likely to listen to the Chamber’s lobbyists.
For years, the Chamber of Commerce has pursued a right-wing agenda out of step with the business interests of many of its members. This year, they’ve launched an all-out lobbying blitz to block all of Obama’s goals—from climate to health care to fixing the economy. If the Chamber has less influence in Washington, our country has a real chance for change.
Call on Toyota to quit the Chamber of Commerce:
Toyota
(212) 223-0303
The Service Employees International Union is also running a campaign against the Chamber, petitioning Senators to “Break Up with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce”:
There’s an exodus from the corporate front group over its extreme views. We must use this opportunity to further isolate the U.S. Chamber as an out-of-touch outfit that only serves the interest of a handful of greedy CEOs.
The U.S. Chamber can’t be taken seriously. Your senators need to know this – the corporate front group is in Congress every day, lobbying for its extremist positions. They need to be immediately discredited.
Sign the petition to the Senate now: don’t listen to the extremist U.S. Chamber of Commerce on any issue.
In addition to these newer campaigns, some small businesses have dealt with the U.S. Chamber’s extremism in more creative ways. The South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce offers an alternative for small businesses that want to be part of a business association but don’t agree with the U.S. Chamber’s anti-consumer policies. They have been fighting against coal plants and for federal climate legislation for years, and they applauded Senator Graham just yesterday for his newfound urgency to reach a bipartisan deal on climate change.
Frank Knapp, President of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber told me on Monday that the U.S. Chamber does not represent the best interests of most small businesses. “I co-founded The S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce because I didn’t believe that small business interests were being represented, specifically in South Carolina, by any other chamber,” Knapp said. “It is clear that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is driven, as most organizations are, by their largest contributors. That traditionally leaves small business interests not being considered.” Business Week asked a similar question last week.
In any large group, a few people do most of the work—usually those who are most ideologically committed or who have a direct stake in a particular outcome. So decisions often end up reflecting not the wishes of the group as a whole but those of its most engaged members. In the case of climate-change legislation like cap-and-trade, many of the companies on the Chamber’s board of directors actually support it. But among the few that publicly oppose it are coal companies, which have a huge stake in stopping any carbon-pricing system. So it’s not surprising that the Chamber’s general approach is closer to Massey Energy’s than to Nike’s.
We assume that lobbies always recognize what’s best for their members. But they don’t, and, in the case of climate change, they may very well be missing what the companies that have resigned in protest have seen: global warming isn’t just bad for the planet; it’s bad for business.
As if the Chamber’s anti-science stance on climate legislation wasn’t enough, they are a key player in other fights against other smart, popular, pro-consumer reforms. Their playbook is exactly the same for every single campaign: spend millions of dollars on misleading television commercials, trying to create fear that reform will destroy the American economy.
Here are a few of the other campaigns they’ve been involved in this year:
The Chamber has lead the fight against the Employee Free Choice Act. They ran millions of dollars worth of misleading ads in home states of key Senators, opposing the legislation. Here is one such ad:
Labor unions responded forcefully — pointing out that the Chamber used the same misleading arguments against the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act 20 years ago — but the damage was done.
On health care they are playing the same disingenuous game they play on climate change. While claiming to support reform, they continue doing everything in their power to protect the status quo. Here is the Chamber’s latest misleading health care ad, thanking Blanche Lincoln for “standing up against a government-run health care plan”:
The Chamber has used the same cynical tactics to oppose financial regulatory reform and the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. President Obama on Friday specifically called out the Chamber for “maintaining the status quo” at the “expense of American consumers” (emphasis mine):
“But all this hasn’t stopped the big financial firms and their lobbyists from mobilizing against change. They’re doing what they always do – descending on Congress and using every bit of influence they have to maintain a status quo that has maximized their profits at the expense of American consumers,” he said. “And since they’re worried they may not be able to kill this agency, they’re trying their hardest to weaken it – by asking for exemptions from this agency’s rules and enforcement; by fighting to keep open every gap and loophole they can find. And they’re very good at this, because that’s how business has been done in Washington for a very long time. In fact, over the last ten years, the Chamber of Commerce alone spent nearly half a billion dollars on lobbying – half a billion dollars.“
So while the bulk of media attention these past few weeks has focused on the Chamber’s stance on climate legislation, there should be no doubt that the group’s efforts are getting in the way of other key elements of the progressive agenda as well.
As Move On notes in their email, the Chamber’s ability to influence members of Congress decreases with each high-profile member company that departs. But the Chamber also relies on annual dues from their nearly 3 million member organizations to finance their misleading political campaigns. Small and large businesses nationwide should take a long hard look at the Chamber’s campaigns and track record, and those who don’t feel represented should end their memberships immediately. Those companies on the Chamber’s board of directors should be subject to additional pressure, since they contribute so heavily to the Chamber’s coffers for the pleasure.
Put another way, companies should only be members of the Chamber of Commerce if they support hyper-conservative anti-regulatory policies across the board, and aren’t afraid to show it. I suspect that hundreds of forward-thinking companies will jump ship in the next several months before their reputations are tarnished by association.
An in-depth review of monitoring data from coal ash ponds located next to 13 coal-burning power plants in North Carolina has revealed that all of them are contaminating groundwater with toxic metals and other pollutants — in some cases at levels exceeding 380 times state groundwater standards.The contaminants reported include arsenic, cadmium, chromium and lead — metals known to cause cancer, neurological problems and other serious illnesses.
The analysis was conducted by Appalachian Voices’ Upper Watauga Riverkeeper team based on data submitted to state regulators by Duke Energy and Progress Energy, the state’s two largest investor-owned electric utilities. The companies conducted the tests as part of a self-monitoring agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The following two documents explain the key findings of the study.
The nation’s third largest utility, Duke Energy has announced it is terminating its membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, citing disagreement over clean energy legislation. “As the debate evolved, it became clear that there were some influential members who would never support climate legislation no matter what,” Duke spokesman Tom Williams told the press this morning. Duke has also withdrawn its membership in the National Association of Manufacturers for similar reasons; the NAM is currently running a misleading ad campaign against clean energy legislation.
In response, Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign issued the following statement.
“The revelations from Duke Energy should not be surprising. It is clear that ACCCE does not have the best interests of the American public at heart. Their only goal is to preserve the dirty status quo for coal, and they will do whatever it takes to keep things that way.
“ACCCE’s idea of fixing the clean energy jobs bill is to kill it or weaken it until it becomes ineffective. The front group has actively been fighting the legislation using any means necessary, including contracting with groups with questionable ethical histories and admitted forgery scandals, like Bonner & Associates and astroturf firms like Lincoln Strategies. The defection of Duke Energy is a clear sign that this front group has gone too far—even for energy companies like Duke that are heavily invested in coal and are attempting to build even more polluting coal plants.
“We cannot let groups like ACCCE, NAM or the US Chamber of Commerce hold America back from passing a clean energy jobs bill that will benefit everyone. Our clean energy economy should not be sacrificed to the extreme coal interests. We look forward to seeing whether other companies who consider the public interest part of their mission will resign from or at least condemn groups like ACCCE, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the US Chamber of Commerce for their efforts to kill clean energy jobs.”
Statement from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity via email:
Statement Regarding ACCCE Coalition
September 2, 2009
“ACCCE is a broad and diverse coalition, composed of more than 40 members, who are working to advance the public policy dialogue on critical issues relating to energy, environmental, and economic policies. From time to time, individual coalition members may have different perspectives with regard to important policy positions.
“Our coalition strongly supports policies that seek continuous environmental improvements through the deployment of advanced technologies; ensure access to affordable, reliable electricity as means of promoting economic prosperity; and promote greater energy independence through the use of domestic energy resources like coal.”
Duke Energy left the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy on Tuesday over differences with “influential member companies who will not support passing climate change legislation in 2009 or 2010,” the company said.
Via email, Duke Energy has provided EnviroKnow with a set of talking points on their decision:
The following are talking points related to Duke Energy withdrawing from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which Duke Energy has been a member of since the fall of 2007.· While some individual members of ACCCE are working to pass climate change legislation, we believe ACCCE is constrained by influential member companies who will not support passing climate change legislation in 2009 or 2010.
· This became increasingly apparent during and after the debate on the Waxman/Markey legislation in the U.S. House in recent months.
· This is not consistent with Duke Energy’s work to pass economy-wide and cost effective climate change legislation as soon as possible.
· Therefore, effective Sept. 1, 2009, Duke Energy resigned from ACCCE
Duke also provided the following background information via email:
We joined ACCCE nearly two years ago to help promote the following key points. We will continue to make these key points.· The fact that using coal to generate power has gotten cleaner and cleaner over the past 15 years, with substantial reductions in nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate and mercury emissions.
· Coal must continue to be part of our nation’s power generation mix.
· Federal climate change legislation must be fair to the states that depend on coal.
· Federal climate change legislation should also support the development of carbon capture and sequestration technologies.
Update 11:38 a.m EST: ACCCE has removed Duke from its list of member organizations. The screenshot below, taken at 11:30 a.m. EST, still included Duke Energy:
Duke Energy is the one of America’s largest coal-burning utility – so why would its chairman, Jim Rogers, back a cap on carbon emissions? “Because America has to start making smart choices,” he says in a 30-second spot that begins airing nationally today (see video below). “A well-designed cap that provides a smooth transition to clean energy will keep electricity affordable and protect your family’s budget,” Rogers adds.
This Sierra Club press release just came via email:
44 Arrested for Protesting Duke’s Climate Hypocrisy
Energy Giant Talks “Green,” Then Builds More Coal Plants
Charlotte, N.C.— Police arrested 44 people for participating in a protest of Duke Energy’s plans to add massive additional coal burning to the company’s Cliffside plant. Those arrested include: Jim Warren of NC Warn; Bo Webb and Mike Roselle from Coal River Mountain in Appalachia; Larry Gibson and Mike McCoy-from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth; and several Rutherford County residents where the construction is underway. They will likely be charged with second-degree trespass.
