The United States Chamber of Horrors Commerce just lost a big Mac. Today, Apple Computers has quit the Chamber completely over the Chamber's position on climate change. Apple writes:
We strongly object to the chamber’s recent comments opposing the E.P.A.’s effort to limit greenhouse gases.
Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the chamber at odds with us in this effort.
Last week, Nike resigned from the board -- but not the chamber itself -- and in the last few weeks, three utilities have likewise quit, all specifically because of the Chamber's position on climate change legislation. So what's going on here?
The Wall Street Journal notes some strange bedfellows in the climate fight over the climate bill:
The flurry of companies quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is highlighting how the climate-change issue is straining traditional alliances in Washington, as some businesses seek to profit from overhauling the energy market and others try to cut deals to head off tougher regulation.
Some companies and industry groups that have in the past worked with Republicans to fight efforts to curb the use of fossil fuels -- such as Detroit's auto makers -- are now expressing support for action on climate change. Some support legislation to put a price on the carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming, while others support preserving the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate such greenhouse gases.
Yeah, GM, Ford, and Toyota actually want the climate bill to pass rather than face patchwork regulations. The world has shifted.
In the next few days, a business umbrella group, We Can Lead, plans to swarm Capitol Hill, including meetings with Secretaries of the Interior, Energy, and Commerce. We Can Lead includes businesses thought of as "better if not perfect -- Starbucks, ClifBars, Seventh Generation -- along with utilities and software companies.
Separately, Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy supports the Kerry-Boxer bill. BICEP's founding members are Levi Strauss & Co., Nike, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems, and Timberland. BICEP will be lobbying Arkansas, home of senators Lincoln and Pryor, and North Dakota, home of senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan.
For utilities, the motivation is clear self-interest: they think they'll make at least as much money selling wind power as they do coal power. General Re, the Swiss insurer, has been urging government action on climate change for a similar self-interest; natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and landslides are very expensive for property insurers, so government action now means less claims paid later.
Another factor for national businesses is the desire for national consistency and stability. Two major regional state-led groups, the Western Climate Initiative and the Northeastern Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, both have plans to regulate carbon in some fashion.
Businesses may have also moved from denial to acceptance. Most of the world will be regulating carbon in some fashion. By now, the fight in most of the developed and developing world is not whether carbon should be regulated, but how. In the United States, the fight will be over whether carbon should be regulated by the EPA or legislated by Congress. Businesses have started to understand that by denying the existence of climate change, not only do they appear brain-dead, but also lose the ability to participate in the framework of regulation.
Many progressives instinctively dislike any bill sponsored by big business. They fear the possibility of huge carbon markets to be run by Goldman Sachs. However, many of the businesses in We Can Lead and BICEP are not directly self-interested. Which brings me to the last factor explaining why Apple is joining the long list of businesses supporting the Kerry-Boxer bill: the reality of significant climate change is unavoidable. And, on the fear of Wall Street, I will follow the lead of economist and progressive Paul Krugman on why the threat of speculation shouldn't cause us to shun a climate bill:
it’s not a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good, it’s a case of the perfect being an enemy of the planet.