BUSINESS SAYS ENERGY/CLIMATE BILL IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS, LOBBY SAYS NO

Why Businesses (Big and Small) Should Support the Waxman-Markey Bill
Mindy Lubber, May 20, 2009 (Huffington Post)

LATE BREAKING: FINAL VOTE ON HOUSE ENERGY/CLIMATE LEGISLATION LIKELY THURSDAY NIGHT.

SUMMARY
10,000 small business leaders, including hundreds that are members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, signed on to a petition asking the Chamber to stop lobbying against H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA), co-written by Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif), Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass), Chair of the House Energy Subcommittee. The bill is currently undergoing mark up preparation for being submitted to the full House of Representatives and the final Committee vote could come as early as Thursday night.

Example of how important New Energy – and public policy that is supportive of New Energy – can be to small business: Tom Benson’s World's Largest Laundromat (Berwyn, Illinois) was failing when 25% of his monthly revenues was going for his washers’ hot water. After he installed a solar hot water system, thanks to an Illinois grant that covered half the cost, the 36 10-by-4 solar panels reduced his bill $25,000/year and turned his laundromat profitable.

Major big businesses are also emerging to speak out against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's lobbying position, endorse the Waxman-markey legislation and demand the Chamber reverse its opposition.

Business for Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) represents major businesses, members of the Chamber, and has endorsed ACESA.

The U.S. Climate Action Partnership (US CAP), an alliance of corporate and environmental interests, supports the provisions in ACESA, including GhG caps, requirements for Energy Efficiency and policies supporting New Energy.

US CAP represents some of the biggest, most important corporate interests in the world. (click to enlarge)

The Northwest Business Leaders for Climate Solutions, a network of 300 big and small businesses and executives in the Pacific Northwest, is an important regional alliance that advocates emissions controls, efficiencies and New Energy.

Ceres, an alliance of investor and environmentalist advocates for sustainable business practices, endorsed the Waxman-Markey ACESA legislation, approved the petition and called for cap&trade.

COMMENTARY
A joint Ceres/BICEP statement called ACESA “a significant step forward” and said they would like to see even stronger New Energy and Energy Efficiency requirements because they would lower the costs of GhG reduction.

BICEP’s members include Levi Strauss & Co., Nike, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems,
Timberland, Aspen Skiing Company, Clif Bar & Company, eBay, Gap Inc., Seventh Generation and Symantec. Its 9 principles:
(1) Set short- and long-term greenhouse gas reduction targets;
(2) Stimulate green job growth;
(3) Adopt national renewable portfolio standard;
(4) Capture vast energy efficiency opportunities;
(5) Boost investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency and carbon capture and storage technologies;
(6) Establish cap-and-trade system with 100% auction of carbon allowances;
(7) Encourage transportation for clean energy economy;
(8) Limit construction of new coal plants to those that capture and store CO2;
(9) Assist developing countries in adapting to climate change and reducing carbon emissions.

From BICEP via YouTube

US CAP members include some of the most powerful multinational corporate and environmental players in the world such as Alcoa, Boston Scientific Corporation, BP America Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Chrysler LLC, ConocoPhillips, Deere & Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy, DuPont, Environmental Defense Fund, Exelon Corporation, Ford Motor Company, FPL Group, Inc., General Electric, General Motors Corp., Johnson & Johnson, Marsh, Inc., Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, NRG Energy, Inc., PepsiCo. Pew Center on Global Climate Change, PG&E Corporation, PNM Resources, Rio Tinto, Shell, Siemens Corporation, World Resources Institute and Xerox Corporation.

US CAP’s Blueprint for Legislative Action calls for the same measures that are contained in ACESA, including a reduction of GhGs by 14-to-20% by 2020 and by 80% by 2050, a national cap&trade system with a gradual transition to auctioned allowances, and federal funding support for New Energy, Energy Efficiencies and new technologies.

A US CAP statement said ACESA “broadly embraces” what is called for in the Blueprint and urges the bill’s advancement.

There is huge opportunity for business in emissions markets. (click to enlarge)

The 3 core principles of the Northwest Business Leaders for Climate Solutions:
(1) Global climate change is “the defining challenge for our time” and acting sooner will make solutions affordable and generate opportunity in the Pacific Northwest while failing to act is a potentially “catastrophic” level of risk for the economy, the quality of life, and future generations.
(2) Strong policy action at the state, regional, and federal levels is needed and should include at least (a) limiting emissions to levels according to the scientific consensus through an emissions price mechanism to catalyze investment and drive market-based solutions and (b) driving cost-effective reductions of emissions and of energy use and investment in New Energy, Energy Efficiency and new technology.
(3) Making the Pacific Northwest a leader in the New Energy economy with “sustainable business practices, strategic investment, and support for good policy solutions.”

The Pacific Northwest group’s statement approved of the way ACESA tackles climate change and breaks ground for the New Energy economy by capping “global warming pollution” and creating incentives for a New Energy future that will “open the door to millions of new jobs in the most important economic sector for the 21st century…” The statement also said the business group would like to see better protections against “giveaways to fossil fuel interests...”

U.S. businesses see at first hand the way policies supportive of New Energy could change the way the entire nation is doing business and using energy. U.S. multinational corporations have seen the early impacts of global climate change from places like New Orleans, where oil and gas refineries were forced by hurricanes to shut down and retrofit, to the tropical rainforests of Indonesia and South America, where sources of raw materials, low wage work and low cost supply chains in emerging economies are dramatically shifting while recalcitrant U.S. conservatives hide their heads in the sands of tacky science.

Business wants to get on with it. (click to enlarge)

Example: McKinstry Co., a builder in 15 U.S. states, wants to install efficiency measures but can only make as much progress as public policy will support. Where policy is supportive, McKinstry creates jobs and builds buildings that use energy efficiently.

Example: Starbucks is being forced to move to arable lands as climate change brings drought or inundation to places that were previously coffee-bean growing lands.

It is almost suspicious how so many influential members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and so many rank and file members stand on one side of the policy debate while the Chamber leadership has chosen to take an opposing stance.

The business leaders who are speaking out against the Chamber see the transition to a New Energy economy as pro-business and believe it will save money. Furthermore, they see the opportunity to avoid the big costs that will inevitably come with the worst effects of global climate change as a way to save even more money. They see the Chamber’s attitude as a denial of changes – such as costly disruptions in agricultural patterns and rising sea levels that drive population shifts and massive emergency spending - that will come if action is not taken. And they see enormous economic opportunity in taking action and leading the transition to a New Energy economy.

From cpiweb via YouTube

QUOTES
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce: "[The Waxman-Markey bill is] unworkable and would cause significant economic harm by imposing a multitrillion-dollar tax on businesses."
- Mindy Lubber, President, Ceres: “It's a tired song. This is the same crowd that fought ozone-protection legislation measures in 1995, saying the costs would exceed $135 billion and that industries would collapse. The actual costs were barely one percent of that, the health benefits were enormous, and chemical companies made millions producing less dangerous chemicals.”
- Tom Benson, owner, World's Largest Laundromat, talking about his business’s solar hot water system: "Our energy bills could have sunk this business…Now, they're a source of pride."
- Ben Packard, VP of Global Sustainability, Starbucks: "The way we see it…addressing climate change will help companies like ours reduce operating costs and mitigate future economic instability due to extreme weather conditions, agricultural loss and the very real human costs they bring."
- Dean Allen, CEO, McKinstry Co.: "Our results have proven that a focus on green does create significant numbers of sustainable, family-wage and career track jobs…"
- Benson, laundromat owner, on the U.S. Chamber of Coomerce opposition to ACESA, the Waxman-Markey energy and climate change bill: "I don't think the business community ought to do knee-jerk reactions to something just because there's a change in the ballgame."