https://www.dailykos.com/user/Chamber Watch/rss/index.xml News Community Action Copyright 2005 - Steal what you want Mon, 01 Feb 2021 19:09:17 +0000 Mon, 01 Feb 2021 19:09:17 +0000 Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/11/5/1896607/-Feeling-the-Heat-on-Climate-Policy-from-Members-Public-U-S-Chamber-Announces-Climate-Task-Force <p style="text-align:center"><strong>Feeling the Heat on Climate Policy from Members and the Public, U.S. Chamber Announces Climate Task Force</strong></p> <p>A decade ago, Apple Inc. and three large power utility companies famously <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-chamber-climatechange/after-skepticism-u-s-chamber-of-commerce-forms-climate-change-task-force-idUSKBN1W92WH">ended their membership</a> with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its policy of obstructing any and all meaningful climate action. This may have stung for the Chamber, but not enough to move the dial: Under President and CEO Tom Donohue, the Chamber has done little over the years to change its antagonistic stance toward meeting the demands of our climate emergency and has continued lobbying on behalf of fossil fuel interests. Just two years ago, the Chamber <a href="https://chamberofcommercewatch.org/u-s-chamber-say-au-revoir-paris-agreement-bonjour-big-oil/">was instrumental</a> in pushing President Donald Trump to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement.</p> <p>The Chamber has spent much of 2019 reckoning with the reality of a Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives as well as growing consensus among <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2019/10/18/more-companies-are-taking-on-climate-change-are-they-doing-enough/">even many corporations</a> about the climate emergency, by making efforts to clean up its image and present a climate-friendly face. In April, the Chamber unveiled its <em>American Energy: Cleaner, Stronger </em>agenda, which we <a href="https://chamberofcommercewatch.org/cleaner-stronger-agenda-pr-stunt/">demonstrated</a> to be an attempt at image rehab rather than a substantive change in climate policy. Now, however, the Chamber may have found itself <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-24/u-s-chamber-to-re-examine-climate-policy-that-cost-it-members">backed into a corner</a> and pressured into making more significant changes—ones that, of course, deserve scrutiny and skepticism given the Chamber’s history on the issue.</p> <p>In late September, the Chamber announced its “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/023740_climatetaskforce_onepager_03.pdf" title="">Task Force on Climate Actions</a>,” a task force open to all U.S. Chamber members. The task force’s <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/023740_climatetaskforce_onepager_03.pdf">one-pager</a> uses the <a href="https://chamberofcommercewatch.org/cleaner-stronger-agenda-pr-stunt/">same trick</a> the Chamber used earlier this year with its <em>American Energy: Cleaner, Stronger </em>agenda: vague, noncommittal rhetoric that largely lets fossil fuels off the hook and <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/1/4/18166400/republicans-climate-change-innovation-policy">pretends</a> that private sector innovation is a sufficient solution to the dire conditions we face.</p> <p>However, a few of the changes the Chamber has recently unveiled go beyond just the surface level. The first section of the Chamber’s “Our Approach to Climate Change” web <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/climate-change-position">page</a>, for instance, begins with “[t]he climate is changing and humans are contributing to these changes.”</p> <p>While it is in no way revolutionary for the Chamber to make a statement like this when its truthfulness had been well-established through scientific consensus decades ago, it nevertheless marks a drastic about-face for the trade association that has long trafficked in disinformation and antagonism on the topic. In 2009 <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/10/more-chamber-commerces-climate-denial/">claimed to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA</a>) that “a warming of even 3 C in the next 100 years would, on balance, be beneficial to humans”. Even as recently as 2017, the Chamber’s “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170913230147/https:/www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/2017_policy_priorities_-_2.8.17.pdf">American Growth Agenda</a>” signaled an intention to “[o]ppose the EPA efforts to regulate greenhouse gases under the existing Clean Air Act.”</p> <p>Perhaps the most surprising new feature of the Chamber’s public-facing messaging on the climate crisis can be found on its “Addressing Climate Change” web <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/addressing-climate-change">page</a>. About halfway down the page is a section with the heading, “Government Agencies Have a Critical Role to Play Too.”</p> <p>This is somewhat astonishing given the hostility the Chamber has historically shown toward even a whiff of environmental regulation. Public Citizen <a href="https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/chamber_litigation_report_part_1.pdf">found</a> in 2016 that of the 501 most recent cases in which the Chamber was involved, the Chamber overwhelmingly participated as amicus rather than as a plaintiff. The exceptions are illuminating: it was party to 25 cases challenging environmental regulations, and in 60% of those cases, the Chamber sued the EPA. This includes lawsuits challenging the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the Clean Power Plan.</p> <p>Now, we should treat the development of the Chamber’s task force with a great deal of skepticism. For instance, within that “Government Agencies Have a Critical Role to Play Too” section, the Chamber notably does <em>not </em>endorse policies like limiting greenhouse gas pollution, setting standards for sustainability in building construction, mandating wider access to charging stations for electric cars, or any of the other numerous things these agencies could do via regulation.</p> <p>The Chamber’s new rhetoric may be less outwardly combative toward the executive branch than before, but there is no indication that it plans to stop fighting environmental regulation. Indeed, as recently as September 12, the Chamber’s Global Energy Institute <a href="https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/us-chamber-statement-clean-water-announcement">praised</a> the Trump Administration’s move to roll back the Waters of the United States rule. This rollback <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/clean-water-rule-rollback-may-benefit-golfer-in-chief-while-wiping-out-protections-for-millions-of-americans/">would severely undercut</a> the Clean Water Act, curtailing the number of protected waterways and wetlands and allowing for more pollution in America’s water sources, harming the safety of our drinking water and putting aquatic wildlife at risk. The message seems to be that government action on the climate crisis may now be acceptable, but only within a narrow, limited scope the Chamber deems appropriate.</p> <p>The governmental roles that the Chamber envisions are vague enough that we have little ability to assess them. But largely, they seem fall along the lines of expanding private sector innovation: increasing funding for corporate research and development, enacting trade deals that advance the Chamber’s existing agenda, and passing the relatively small-scale bills the Chamber endorses. Characteristically for the Chamber, this agenda leaves plenty of room for corporate profiteering, and there is no guarantee that the Chamber is remotely serious about versions of these policies that help on climate.</p> <p>Outside of the limited role for government, the Chamber claims that climate change can be solved by “[l]everag[ing] the power of business.” “It will be largely up to the business community to develop, finance, build, and operate the solutions needed to power economic growth worldwide, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and build resilient, lower-carbon infrastructure,” reads the “The Chamber’s Position” <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/climate-change-position">page</a>, even alluding to the notion that we can rely on the private sector rather than coordinated public action to build a sufficiently climate-resilient infrastructure.</p> <p>Nevertheless, as small as the Chamber’s steps may be from its previous climate policy, it’s clear that the Chamber sees that climate change is being taken seriously enough on a widespread, mainstream scale that it cannot stick to the same old talking points. Given the Chamber’s bullheadedness on this issue stretching back decades, it’s clear it is feeling the pressure of its critics.</p> <p>Over the summer, for instance, members of Congress and online influencers decried the Chamber’s role in lobbying on behalf of fossil fuels and obstructing climate action through the <a href="https://chamberofcommercewatch.org/chamberofcarbon/">#ChamberofCarbon campaign</a>, designed to educate the public and expose the Chamber, <a href="https://chamberofcommercewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Chamber_of_Secrets_members_report.pdf">funded in secret</a>, as an enemy of climate science and advocacy.</p> <p>And given that Americans <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/americans-increasingly-see-climate-change-as-a-crisis-poll-shows/2019/09/12/74234db0-cd2a-11e9-87fa-8501a456c003_story.html">increasingly see climate change as a crisis</a>, the Chamber may be frightened of dissension within its ranks. Presumably, many of the companies that make up the association’s membership do not want to risk bad PR and loss of profit by appearing to condone climate obstructionism. The Chamber does not want another high-profile exit like that of Apple a decade ago—much less a mass exodus.</p> <p>The announcement of the Chamber’s climate task force and the changes to its public stance on the climate crisis, limited though they are, show that activism and pressure are working. In turn, that shows that we need to keep it up with our aggressive tactics. It will take massive people power to neutralize the influence the fossil fuel lobby and obstructionist trade associations like the Chamber have over public policy. But that power is ours, should we choose to wield it.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCarbon ChamberofCommerce CleanEnergy Climate ClimateAction ClimateChange ClimatePolicy Environment FossilFuels GreenNewDeal parisaccord Regulation USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1896607 Tue, 05 Nov 2019 15:45:40 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/9/23/1887352/-Despite-the-Chamber-s-Claims-a-Wall-Street-Sales-Tax-Would-Not-Fall-on-Average-Citizens <p>Almost exactly 11 years ago, Wall Street’s reckless behavior crashed the nation’s economy, devastating the lives of millions. Now, the rules put in place after the financial crisis to stop bank “gambling” in the stock markets are being weakened by through <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/20/volcker-rule-joseph-otting-banks-1672620">deregulation</a> and speculation is still rampant on Wall Street. Additionally, Big Banks are making record profits while the rest of the country still continues to struggle. The system is rigged, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would like it to stay that way.</p> <p>On Monday, the Chamber released a <a href="https://www.centerforcapitalmarkets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/CCMC_FTT-Report_v2-DIGITAL.pdf">new report</a> taking aim at legislative proposals to implement a financial transaction tax. The report misleadingly says that ordinary Americans would suffer the brunt of its effects. As is typical of the Chamber, this argument hides its agenda of protecting wealthy and powerful interests behind hollow rhetoric of safeguarding the ‘little guy.’</p> <p>The idea behind a proposed financial transaction tax or FTT (also called a Wall Street sales tax or Robin Hood tax) is to levy a small fee—just a fraction of a percent—on Wall Street trading of stocks, bonds, and derivatives. In the proposed Wall Street Tax Act of 2019 (<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/647?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22s647%22%5D%7D&amp;s=2&amp;r=1">S. 647</a>/<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1516?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hr1516%22%5D%7D&amp;s=1&amp;r=1">H.R. 1516</a>) for instance, trades would be taxed at a rate of just 10 cents per every $100 traded.</p> <p>An FTT would have the dual aims of taking a step toward having Wall Street pay its fair share of taxes, as well as curbing bad behavior on Wall Street, such as dangerous high-frequency trading. These computer programs trade thousands of stocks per second based on  algorithms and they currently account for <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/high-frequency-trading-danger-risk-wall-street/" title="">over half</a> of U.S. trading. High-frequency trading <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/high-frequency-trading-danger-risk-wall-street/">could lead</a> to another financial catastrophe if not curbed—for example, they were a primary cause of the May 2010 “<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/studies/2010/marketevents-report.pdf">flash crash</a>.” And, high-frequency trading is rightfully being blamed for <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-the-market-swoon-the-herdlike-behavior-of-computerized-trading-11545785641">worsening recent market disruptions</a>.</p> <p>There are other important arguments for a financial transaction tax as well. For one, ordinary people pay sales taxes on most kinds of goods and services, but arbitrarily, no such tax applies to purchases of financial securities. Nonpartisan research from the Joint Committee on Taxation shows that at a rate of just 10 cents per every $100 traded, such a tax would raise an estimated <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/54667" title="">$777 billion over 10 years</a>, which could be used to help <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2019/03/06/sales-tax-wall-street-trades-can-build-main-street/3055089002/" title="">rebuild Main Street</a> and invest in programs that working families need.</p> <p>The Chamber’s report claims that an FTT is “a tax on investors” and that “Main Street will pay for the tax, not Wall Street.” This claim is unfounded. As Public Citizen’s recent <a href="https://www.citizen.org/article/financial-transactions-tax-report/?eType=EmailBlastContent&amp;eId=ad46a975-29b0-4331-931c-cd3589cd0e0c">report</a> shows, only about half of U.S. families would likely experience any costs at all from a WSST because only about half of U.S. families have retirement accounts. Furthermore, this report demonstrates, a WSST would be a progressive tax:</p> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl"><img alt="FTT-3d-chart.png" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/720801/large/FTT-3d-chart.png?1569261957" title="FTT-3d-chart.png"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce FinancialReform FinancialTradeTax FTT USChamber USChamberofCommerce WallStreet WallStreetSalesTax WallStreetTaxAct _1887352 Mon, 23 Sep 2019 17:57:54 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/8/21/1880411/-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-s-Support-for-Junk-Plans-Puts-Industry-Profits-Over-Americans-Health-Needs <p>Recently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released an issue brief entitled “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/issue-brief/association-health-plans-everything-you-need-know">Association Health Plans: Everything You Need to Know</a>.” The brief argues for expanded “association health plans” (AHPs)—junk health care plans with skimpy coverage and without Affordable Care Act protections—to address the problem of rising health insurance premiums.</p> <p>In characteristic fashion, the Chamber has enthusiastically boosted an industry-friendly “solution” to a real problem – despite the fact that their proposal would not actually solve the core issue and would leave American households with inadequate coverage and the potential for huge medical bills if they get sick.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/association_health_care_plans.pdf">brief</a> points out that “[t]he number of small businesses offering health coverage has declined significantly over the years, from 47% in 2000 to 29% in 2016, in part because many entrepreneurs simply can’t afford to offer high-priced comprehensive plans.” Here, the Chamber has made the correct diagnosis—but its prescription is ill-conceived and misses the mark completely.</p> <p>The Chamber favors a 2018 ruling instituted by the Department of Labor that would <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/health-care-sabotage-final-rule-would-let-insurers-offer-junk-plans-that-skimp-on-benefits/">sabotage American health care</a>. Recently, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20190329.393236/full/">found</a> that the DOL rule’s two key provisions are unlawful, and so parts of the rule have been halted and the establishment of new AHPs is currently prohibited. The Chamber, however, disagrees with this decision and has <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/series/above-the-fold/us-chamber-fights-uphold-ahp-rule-small-businesses">filed an amicus brief</a> with an appellate court in an effort to have it reversed. With its issue brief, the Chamber hopes to make the case for AHPs as a supposedly great way to deal with rising premiums, when it would instead allow unscrupulous insurers to offer poor coverage.</p> <p>If the District Court’s ruling were reversed, it would make it easier for insurers to offer these junk plans, which often exclude ACA required benefits, such as prescription drugs and quality maternity care. Enrollees who get sick could be responsible for significant expenses, forcing them into debt for care and even risking medical bankruptcy.</p> <p>These plans are <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/health-care-sabotage-final-rule-would-let-insurers-offer-junk-plans-that-skimp-on-benefits/">not required to meet</a> many of the standards that were established under the Affordable Care Act. For instance, AHPs are allowed to charge different rates based on gender, age and location. And while they are not allowed to discriminate in coverage or pricing on the basis of pre-existing conditions, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that some AHPs can circumvent this prohibition by “consider[ing] the pre-existing conditions and the past medical claims of small business workers when setting premiums (known as ‘medical underwriting’).” This could mean that AHPs would target younger and healthier industries and workplaces to offer cheap rates, but leaving those workers on the hook for huge expenses down the road.</p> <p>Furthermore, expanding AHPs would have the disastrous effect of further destabilizing the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. By cherry-picking the youngest and healthiest Americans through attracting them with deceivingly lower premiums, they would leave only the sick to be covered under ACA-compliant plans, causing premiums for such plans to rise. Allowing the sale of poorly regulated plans takes us back to a time when greedy insurers offered false promises to consumers and abandoned them when they got sick.</p> <p>It is true that small businesses struggle to provide adequate health care benefits to their employees due to the rising costs of health care. However, covering those employees under sham AHPs with skimpy coverage is not the answer. Instead, we must confront the actual root of the problem: the private insurance market’s bottomless appetite for profiting from Americans’ illness.</p> <p>A far more sensible solution is for the United States to adopt <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/the-case-for-medicare-for-all/">Medicare for All</a>. Under such a system, small businesses <a href="https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/migration/medicare-for-all_would_cost_less_while_covering_more.pdf">would no longer have to worry</a> about providing insurance to their employees; instead, those employees would be automatically enrolled in guaranteed coverage that does not discriminate by age or gender and would not leave employees in the lurch. Employers would even benefit from the fact that Medicare for All would improve Americans’ overall health, reducing sick days taken and increasing productivity.</p> <p>Of course, the Chamber would never concede that expanding and improving Medicare to cover all Americans is the best way to solve the problems of excessive health plan costs. It would never want to endanger the profit margins of its industry cronies in Big Pharma, private insurance, biotechnology and others who rely on the cruelty and callousness of our disastrous for-profit health care system. Indeed, the Chamber is actively working to obstruct the momentum of Medicare for All, with Chamber president Tom Donohue <a href="https://chamberofcommercewatch.org/new-year-same-old-chamber/">promising</a> to “use all of our resources to combat” such reform.</p> <p>We should reject AHPs and any other corporate-approved proposals that pose as “solutions” to the issues of excessive health care costs in America. The Chamber loves to endorse measures that masquerade as solutions but actually exacerbate or perpetuate the injustices in our society. The public should see those proposals for the charade they are. Instead of adopting industry-friendly solutions to industry-caused problems, we <a href="https://publiccitizen.salsalabs.org/m4apetition/index.html">must demand</a> Medicare for All because it would finally put people ahead of profits when it comes to health care in America.</p> <p><em>U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </em><a href="http://chamberofcomm.wpengine.com/" target="_blank" title=""><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em> or follow us on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a> <em>and </em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) AssociationHealthPlans ChamberofCommerce HealthInsurance HealthReform MedicareForAll PrivateInsurance SinglePayer USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1880411 Wed, 21 Aug 2019 18:28:47 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/7/26/1874438/-The-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-s-Report-Claiming-Forced-Arbitration-Benefits-Workers-is-a-Farce <p>Recently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce-affiliated Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) released a report titled “<a href="https://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/uploads/sites/1/Empirical-Assessment-Employment-Arbitration.pdf">Fairer, Faster, Better: An Empirical Assessment of Employment Arbitration</a>.” If that title causes you to raise an eyebrow, you’re right to be suspicious. Through <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/misleading-and-biased-research-why-a-report-on-arbitration-by-a-chamber-of-commerce-affiliate-is-just-plain-wrong/">dubious evidence and misleading rationale</a>, the ILR report concludes that workers benefit more by being forced into arbitration rather than being allowed to press their claim in open court before a neutral judge and jury.</p> <p>Forced arbitration is a system wherein workers must give up their right to sue their employer or join a class action against the employer should they face harm such as discrimination or harassment in the workplace. Rather than have these claims of harms assessed by an impartial judge and jury, employees under forced arbitration clauses in their contracts must instead seek to address grievances before private arbitrators. These arbitrators do not have to follow judicial precedent, and the complaints alleged in arbitration cases are rarely made public, keeping other employees or the public at large in the dark about the harms that have occurred within a corporation. For these and <a href="https://www.consumeradvocates.org/for-consumers/arbitration">other reasons</a>, despite the ILR’s claims, forced arbitration is very much <em>not </em>beneficial to workers.</p> <p>The Chamber and ILR have longed advocated for forced arbitration, a dispute resolution process that advantages Big Business, for example by allowing companies to escape full accountability for wrongdoing like wage theft and misclassification of workers.</p> <p>The ILR report was written by ndp | analytics, a strategic research firm that for large corporate clients.  The report seems designed as a tool for corporate lobbyists to sway lawmakers to oppose any legislation that would prohibit companies from forcing workers, consumers, and small businesses into forced arbitration. It is no surprise, then, that the report was conveniently published shortly before a <a href="https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=109484">hearing</a> in the U.S. House of Representatives on forced arbitration.</p> <p>Over the years, the Chamber has consistently taken anti-worker stances on other matters of <a href="https://chamberofcommercewatch.org/challengingthechamber/civil-justice/">civil justice</a> and <a href="https://chamberofcommercewatch.org/challengingthechamber/worker-safety/">workplace safety</a>. The ILR report even fits with one of the Chamber’s favorite tricks: claiming that pro-worker policies like <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-statement-overtime-rule-decision">overtime protection</a> and a <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/series/above-the-fold/better-minimum-wage-hike">higher minimum wage</a> would be harmful to workers. The Chamber loves to pretend it’s standing up for David when it advocates for Goliath’s favored policies. The Chamber’s stance on forced arbitration flies in the face of the <a href="https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&amp;httpsredir=1&amp;article=1358&amp;context=facpub">overwhelming consensus</a> among labor experts that the practice is harmful to workers.</p> <p>The ILR’s so-called “empirical assessment” mentioned in the report’s title amounts to selectively using misleading data to advance an ideological narrative, and the report’s methodology is designed to skew the results in ways that favor the Chamber’s dubious claims.</p> <p>Labor policy experts Terri Gerstein and Heidi Shierhold <a href="https://prospect.org/article/chamber-speaks-forced-arbitration-actually-good-workers">write in the<em> American Prospect</em></a> that the report is “an epic presentation of wrong answers to wrong questions.” Gertstein and Shierholz note that the report’s data is glaringly selective in deeply misleading ways. For instance, the report omits class actions and state court lawsuits in its litigation data, glosses over the fact that forced arbitration’s biggest problem is that it “prevents workers from ever bringing cases in the first place,” and neglects decades of established academic studies on the topic showing that consumers and workers lose out when they are forced into arbitration.</p> <p>In an <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/misleading-and-biased-research-why-a-report-on-arbitration-by-a-chamber-of-commerce-affiliate-is-just-plain-wrong/">expanded critique</a> of the report on the Economic Policy Institute blog, Gertstein and Shierholz note several more flaws in the report’s methods and conclusions. These include that:</p> <ul> <li>The information available on arbitration is extremely limited and the report analyzes only a small fraction of the arbitration cases that occurred between 2014 and 2018</li> <li>The report analyzes employees in the arbitration sample with much higher earnings than the general public</li> <li>The report fails to consider the benefit litigation has in securing settlements in cases that do not go to trial</li> </ul> <p>The end result, Gerstein and Shierholz argue, is to skew the results of the analysis toward the Chamber’s pre-existing premise that forced arbitration is beneficial for workers.</p> <p>Perhaps the Chamber is tossing out every argument it can in the hopes that something will stick, no matter how patently ridiculous the claim, because it sees the growing bipartisan momentum against forced arbitration. Three congressional hearings focusing on forced arbitration have already been held in 2019 alone. In February, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) <a href="https://hankjohnson.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-johnson-sen-blumenthal-introduce-legislation-end-forced-arbitration">introduced</a> the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/610" title="">Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act</a> in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. The FAIR Act would prohibit companies from forcing consumers, workers, and small businesses into using arbitration before a dispute has even occurred. And according to a recent survey, <a href="https://www.justice.org/sites/default/files/2.28.19%20Hart%20poll%20memo.pdf" title="">more than 80 percent</a> of both Republicans and Democrats support ending the practice of forcing workers, consumers, and small businesses into arbitration.</p> <p>Forced arbitration restricts the rights of workers, consumers, and small businesses to seek justice in court before an impartial judge and jury and shields corporations from accountability for illegal practices and other wrongdoing. We should see ILR’s flailing for what it is: an attempt by the Chamber, afraid of the strength of the movement against forced arbitration, to pull the wool over lawmakers’—and the public’s—eyes so it can preserve anti-worker policies that benefit the bottom line of its corporate benefactors.<br> <br> <em>U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </em><a href="http://chamberofcomm.wpengine.com/" target="_blank" title=""><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em> or follow us on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a> <em>and </em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce CivilJustice FAIRAct forcedarbitration ILR InstituteforLegalReform Litigation USChamber USChamberofCommerce WorkersRights _1874438 Fri, 26 Jul 2019 13:59:33 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/6/6/1863049/-Members-of-Congress-Online-Influencers-Rail-Against-the-ChamberofCarbon-for-Climate-Obstructionism <p>The climate crisis did not happen on its own. Powerful, wealthy interests have deliberately spent decades denying, obfuscating, and mischaracterizing the evidence presented by climate scientists in order to mislead the public. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with its deep coffers bankrolled with funds from fossil fuel companies, auto manufacturers, and other corporations with a financial stake in the status quo, has long been one of the <a href="https://chamberofcommercewatch.org/cleaner-stronger-agenda-pr-stunt/">leading obstructionists</a> on responding to our climate emergency.</p> <p>For the past several weeks, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, along with congressional climate allies and other influential figures and groups, have been using the social media hashtag #ChamberofCarbon in a campaign to call out the Chamber’s role in opposing meaningful climate action. This campaign has continued to grow momentum, and it’s been great to see new allies joining the fight to expose the Chamber’s true stances when it comes to fossil fuels and climate change.</p> <p>In case you’ve missed it, here are some examples of prominent tweets that members of Congress, environmental groups and social media influences have used to sound off on the Chamber’s ongoing climate action obstruction:</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&amp;lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&amp;gt;What do the &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/USChamber?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;@USChamber&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; and &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/ShopFloorNAM?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;@ShopFloorNAM&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; have in common? They’re 2 of corporate America’s top lobbying groups. And they’re both leading the charge to stop Congress from combatting the climate crisis and saving our planet. &amp;lt;a href="https://t.co/AKQFeXQl39"&amp;gt;https://t.co/AKQFeXQl39&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1133834069811318784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;May 29, 2019&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;'><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>What do the <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamber?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USChamber</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/ShopFloorNAM?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ShopFloorNAM</a> have in common? They’re 2 of corporate America’s top lobbying groups. And they’re both leading the charge to stop Congress from combatting the climate crisis and saving our planet. <a href="https://t.co/AKQFeXQl39">https://t.co/AKQFeXQl39</a></p>— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1133834069811318784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 29, 2019</a></blockquote></div> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&amp;lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&amp;gt;“The ocean is screaming.” Are we really too stupid to listen and learn? Or is it politics? &amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;This is the stuff &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChamberofCarbon?src=hash&amp;amp;amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;#ChamberofCarbon&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; has worked so hard to have us ignore. &amp;lt;a href="https://t.co/9QXVyt6Ot8"&amp;gt;https://t.co/9QXVyt6Ot8&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/SenWhitehouse/status/1135254712188620803?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;June 2, 2019&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;'><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>“The ocean is screaming.” Are we really too stupid to listen and learn? Or is it politics? <br><br>This is the stuff <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChamberofCarbon?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ChamberofCarbon</a> has worked so hard to have us ignore. <a href="https://t.co/9QXVyt6Ot8">https://t.co/9QXVyt6Ot8</a></p>— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenWhitehouse/status/1135254712188620803?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2019</a></blockquote></div> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&amp;lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&amp;gt;The &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/USChamber?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;@USChamber&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; may sound like an innocent business group, but it spends millions to block any progress on climate change. &amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;Let&amp;amp;#39;s put an end to this dark money-fueled climate denial. &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChamberofCarbon?src=hash&amp;amp;amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;#ChamberofCarbon&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1126566611794649088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;May 9, 2019&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;'><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamber?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USChamber</a> may sound like an innocent business group, but it spends millions to block any progress on climate change. <br><br>Let's put an end to this dark money-fueled climate denial. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChamberofCarbon?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ChamberofCarbon</a></p>— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) <a href="https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1126566611794649088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2019</a></blockquote></div> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&amp;lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&amp;gt;If they&amp;amp;#39;re serious on climate change:&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;The Chamber of Commerce could use its influence to convince the Trump administration to back off its attacks on climate science and the National Climate Assessment.&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;The business community&amp;amp;#39;s voice can make a big difference.&amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChamberOfCarbon?src=hash&amp;amp;amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;#ChamberOfCarbon&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; &amp;lt;a href="https://t.co/e02FeTOO8v"&amp;gt;pic.twitter.com/e02FeTOO8v&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/1136331791852363777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;June 5, 2019&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;'><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>If they're serious on climate change:<br><br>The Chamber of Commerce could use its influence to convince the Trump administration to back off its attacks on climate science and the National Climate Assessment.<br><br>The business community's voice can make a big difference.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChamberOfCarbon?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ChamberOfCarbon</a> <a href="https://t.co/e02FeTOO8v">pic.twitter.com/e02FeTOO8v</a></p>— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/1136331791852363777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 5, 2019</a></blockquote></div> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&amp;lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&amp;gt;Corporations that want to call themselves environmentally responsible cannot at the same time be members of the &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/USChamber?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;@USChamber&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;. It&amp;amp;#39;s one or the other.&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;The &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChamberofCarbon?src=hash&amp;amp;amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;#ChamberofCarbon&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; has fought climate and clean energy action for decades.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;— Sierra Club (@SierraClub) &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/SierraClub/status/1125774502741389312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;May 7, 2019&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;'><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Corporations that want to call themselves environmentally responsible cannot at the same time be members of the <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamber?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USChamber</a>. It's one or the other.<br><br>The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChamberofCarbon?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ChamberofCarbon</a> has fought climate and clean energy action for decades.</p>— Sierra Club (@SierraClub) <a href="https://twitter.com/SierraClub/status/1125774502741389312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2019</a></blockquote></div> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&amp;lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&amp;gt;.&amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/SenWhitehouse?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;@SenWhitehouse&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; and &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;@AOC&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; are right. It&amp;amp;#39;s not just a complacent government that poses a severe risk to our climate future - it&amp;amp;#39;s the array of corporate special interests fueling complacency. &amp;lt;a href="https://t.co/nFdNkUDEEj"&amp;gt;https://t.co/nFdNkUDEEj&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;— Earthjustice (@Earthjustice) &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/Earthjustice/status/1133470187175460864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;May 28, 2019&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;'><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>.<a href="https://twitter.com/SenWhitehouse?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenWhitehouse</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> are right. It's not just a complacent government that poses a severe risk to our climate future - it's the array of corporate special interests fueling complacency. <a href="https://t.co/nFdNkUDEEj">https://t.co/nFdNkUDEEj</a></p>— Earthjustice (@Earthjustice) <a href="https://twitter.com/Earthjustice/status/1133470187175460864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 28, 2019</a></blockquote></div> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&amp;lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&amp;gt;Thank you for taking on &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/USChamber?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;@USChamber&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;, Senator. They&amp;amp;#39;ve been a leading front for the fossil fuel industry for decades, and it&amp;amp;#39;s time people called them out. &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/chamberofcarbon?src=hash&amp;amp;amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;#chamberofcarbon&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; &amp;lt;a href="https://t.co/G6LMYIXUOV"&amp;gt;https://t.co/G6LMYIXUOV&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) &amp;lt;a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1131268365920739334?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&amp;gt;May 22, 2019&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;'><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Thank you for taking on <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamber?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USChamber</a>, Senator. They've been a leading front for the fossil fuel industry for decades, and it's time people called them out. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/chamberofcarbon?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#chamberofcarbon</a> <a href="https://t.co/G6LMYIXUOV">https://t.co/G6LMYIXUOV</a></p>— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) <a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1131268365920739334?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 22, 2019</a></blockquote></div> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p> <br> Make sure to keep track of the #ChamberofCarbon campaign <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23chamberofcarbon&amp;src=typd">on Twitter</a> as it continues to inform the public and call for the Chamber to be held to account. You can also follow Chamber Watch on <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a> and Facebook, and why not try creating some #ChamberofCarbon posts yourself—make sure to tag your members of Congress and call on them to join the #ChamberofCarbon movement and stand up to the Chamber’s longstanding advocacy for climate inaction.</p> <p> <br> <em>U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </em><a href="http://chamberofcomm.wpengine.com/" target="_blank" title=""><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em> or follow us on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><span> </span><em>and </em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCarbon ChamberofCommerce Climate ClimateAction ClimateChange ClimateObstruction thomasdonohue USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1863049 Thu, 06 Jun 2019 14:01:51 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/5/1/1854545/-Don-t-Believe-the-Hype-The-Chamber-s-Cleaner-Stronger-Energy-Agenda-Is-Merely-a-PR-Stunt <p>In 2019, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been reacting to the public catching on to its blatant partisanship and prioritization of corporations and ultrawealthy donors by undergoing some <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2019/04/25/daily-202-the-u-s-chamber-wants-to-disentangle-its-brand-from-the-gop-and-hopes-to-rebuild-the-center/5cc08e551ad2e52459e24671/">image rehab</a>. Unfortunately, the Chamber’s substantive policy agenda remains as regressive as ever—anti-family, anti-worker, anti-consumer and anti-climate.</p> <p>For an example of the Chamber putting lipstick on a pig, look no further than its recently-unveiled “<em><a href="https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/american-energy-cleaner-stronger">American Energy: Cleaner, Stronger</a></em>” agenda released through its Global Energy Institute (GEI). The <a href="https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/file-tool/GEI%20-%20Public%20Perception%20of%20American%20Energy%20Priorities%204.10.19.pdf">agenda</a> uses lots of buzzwords like “clean,” “renewable,” and “sustainable,” and its acknowledgement that climate change is a clear and present danger demanding action could easily trick you into thinking that the Chamber has softened its historical opposition to meaningful climate action. But this is merely PR-driven smoke and mirrors.</p> <p>A closer look at what the agenda proposes reveals that it’s actually a continuation of that opposition, proposing that climate change be “resolved” through the private sector rather than through legislation and regulation, and advocating America’s continued reliance on fossil fuels. By the Chamber’s own admission, the purpose of the agenda is to obstruct public action on climate: it warns of “state and national leaders go[ing] too far with policy recommendations” and proposes that instead the private sector should lead the way through “innovation and technology.” This is a tactic Frank Luntz promoted all the way back in <a href="http://aireform.com/resources/archive-2002-memorandum-to-bush-white-house-by-gop-consultant-frank-luntz-17p/" title="">2002</a>: use language that makes you sound knowledgeable and reasonable to get away with maintaining inaction on climate change.</p> <p>This plan is not remotely sufficient to meet the enormous challenge of addressing our climate needs. The <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">international consensus</a> on climate change estimates that we have <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/8/17948832/climate-change-global-warming-un-ipcc-report">only 12 years to cut global greenhouse gas pollution in half</a> in order to avoid potentially catastrophic amounts of global warming. No one who has studied the issue could say with a straight face that we can reach that target through “innovation and technology” alone drastic government policy change is needed to zero out U.S. pollution on the timetable we need. In fact, the Chamber even posits that climate action should not be time constrained (with targets like 10 or 12 years in mind), even though the nature of the climate change problem requires that we solve it quickly.</p> <p>The Chamber does not intend to actually meet the task of preventing unacceptable levels of climate change; it just wants plausible deniability against accusations of being a bad actor on climate. The Chamber knows it needs to adjust to the reality that <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/248963/climate-change-concerns-higher-northeast-west.aspx">voters are increasingly concerned about climate change</a>, but has chosen to do so in a way that opposes real solutions. The reality is that deregulation and continued reliance on fossil fuels will make things worse, not better.</p> <p><strong>Goosing Up the Numbers</strong></p> <p>The Chamber justifies taking this inadequate approach by using some very <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-04-24/the-us-chamber-of-commerces-new-take-on-climate-change/">suspect</a> public opinion polling, commissioned by the Chamber/GEI and conducted by FTI Consulting. <a href="https://civilnotionblog.weebly.com/home/the-us-chamber-of-commerces-new-take-on-climate-change">As argued</a> by clean energy policy analyst Joel Stronberg, the survey’s questions are designed in a loaded way aimed toward achieving the kinds of results the Chamber wants. For instance, the Chamber’s results show respondent sentiment is only weakly in favor of “[r]equiring all aspects of the U.S. economy to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution in 10 years, including in all electricity generation, vehicles, agriculture, homes, commercial buildings, and manufacturing, regardless of cost.”</p> <p>This question is clearly designed to invoke various connotations. For one, the “10 year” time-frame primes respondents to be thinking about the proposed solution as a stand-in for the Green New Deal (GND), which has been <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-green-new-deal_n_5c9ea7e2e4b0bc0daca8c489">widely vilified</a> through right wing media’s disinformation about its actual contents. Furthermore, the long list of types of institutions that would require elimination of greenhouse gas pollution is meant to feel exhaustive to the respondent, thereby priming them to think what is being suggested is excessive or an “overreach.” Finally, the phrase “regardless of cost” is suggestive of criticisms that taxpayers as a whole will shoulder an unreasonable financial burden in order to pay for large-scale government action on climate.</p> <p>It’s worth noting that, even despite the many ways this question was loaded, it still received 55% total support, meaning a majority of respondents still approved of the policy.</p> <p>Another of the Chamber’s findings from its survey is even more dubious. It pits the “Cleaner, Stronger” agenda against the GND, and asks respondents which approach they prefer, and finds that across the political spectrum, the majority of respondents preferred “Cleaner, Stronger.”</p> <p>Specifically, respondents <a href="https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/file-tool/GEI%20-%20Public%20Perception%20of%20American%20Energy%20Priorities%204.10.19.pdf">were asked</a> “Which option would you prefer as a focus of our national and state elected leaders?” and given to options to choose between:</p> <ul> <li>‘Cleaner, Stronger’: America focusing on using its resources responsibly and safely by implementing a ‘cleaner, stronger’ energy agenda that prioritizes investments in innovation and advanced technology to reduce emissions.</li> <li>Eliminating Greenhouse Gas Emissions: America focusing on requiring a transition to the Green New Deal’s proposal to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. economy in 10 years, regardless of cost.</li> </ul> <p>As Stronberg argues, “The comparison of its announced Cleaner, Stronger America Agenda with the GND alone is deceitful. Only in a two-way comparison of the GND and the Chamber’s<em> American Energy: Cleaner, Stronger</em> campaign can rejection of the one be considered support for the other—even then such a conclusion would be suspect.”</p> <p>The question falsely implies that pursuing a GND-style approach will not involve any investment in innovation and technology. It also uses the same misleading language to stand in for the GND as it did earlier, portraying the GND as a radical policy and “Cleaner, Stronger” as more measured and therefore reasonable. A GEI <a href="https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/global-energy-institute-unveils-american-energy-cleaner-stronger-agenda">press release</a> calls “Cleaner, Stronger” a “realistic alternative to addressing energy and environmental issues.”</p> <p>What this framing leaves out is that a reliance on the private sector could itself be easily portrayed as the more radical policy. Taking strong legislative action against climate change is a commonsense way of ensuring that the United States meets its global climate action responsibility; pursuing a deregulatory agenda is a recipe for making climate change <em>worse </em>rather than better. But the Chamber wants us thinking about only about the political ease of each approach, rather than what is actually needed to properly address climate change.</p> <p>The <em>Cleaner, Stronger </em>agenda’s use of PR-friendly buzzwords and highly questionable survey methods is all aimed at a singular goal: deregulating the energy industry, allowing fossil fuel industries to continue to profit off the emission of greenhouse gases that will have a devastating effect on the climate. We should not fall for this deception. The Chamber may pretend its plan is a sufficient response to climate change, but we must be honest that avoiding catastrophic levels of global warming requires significant legislative and regulatory action.</p> <p>But then, honesty never was the Chamber’s strong suit.</p> <p><em>U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </em><a href="http://chamberofcomm.wpengine.com/" target="_blank" title=""><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em> or follow us on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a> <em>and </em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce ClimateChange Deregulation FossilFuels GlobalWarming GreenEnergy greenhousegasses Renewable Sustainable USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1854545 Wed, 01 May 2019 14:30:07 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/3/13/1841804/-By-Opposing-H-R-1-the-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-Says-Democracy-Is-For-Corporations-Not-People <p>On Friday, the <a href="https://citizenvox.org/2019/02/27/h-r-1for-the-people-act/" title="">most sweeping anticorruption legislation</a> since the Watergate era <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/house-passes-hr-1-government-overhaul-sending-it-back-to-campaign-trail" title="">passed</a> through the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 234-193. This democracy reform bill, otherwise known as <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1">H.R. 1</a> or the “For the People Act,” has multiple aims: to ensure that our voting and electoral systems are protected and satisfy the “one person, one vote” principle; to crack down on rampant corruption and kleptocracy in Washington; and to reduce the role of corporate money in politics. Among other reforms, the bill calls for an end to gerrymandering, more <a href="https://citizenvox.org/2019/03/11/shining-a-light-on-democracy/" title="">transparent and open government</a> requiring corporate disclosure of political spending, and partial public financing of elections to lessen the power of the ultra-wealthy donor class in determining who wins elections in U.S. politics.</p> <p>To the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, this bill essentially means a disruption in the established way of doing business in Washington—the status quo in which the Chamber and its corporate cronies have outsize influence over who gets elected and what legislation is passed. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the Chamber sent out what it called a “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/key-vote-alert-hr-1-the-people-act-of-2019" title="">Key Vote Alert!</a>” to all House members shortly before the vote was scheduled to take place, urging them to vote no on this bill that is vital to repairing our democracy. As the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s">largest lobbying entity</a> in the United States and a prodigious campaign spender, it is no surprise to see the Chamber sticking its head out on such an ambitious bill that would drastically reduce the influence of corporate money in politics.</p> <p>While the bill passed through the House despite the Chamber’s protestations, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has stated he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/opinion/mcconnell-hr1-democrats-ethics-voting-rights.html" title="">does not intend to bring the bill to a vote</a> on the Senate floor, on the flimsy grounds that “I get to decide what we vote on.” Nevertheless, H.R. 1 is expected to be introduced to the Senate later this month, and sufficient public pressure to pass this <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/3/18148633/hr1-voters-independents-anti-corruption-bill-poll">wildly popular bill</a> could <a href="https://www.insidesources.com/will-mitch-mcconnell-buck-the-american-people/" title="">force McConnell into conceding</a> that withholding these sorely needed reforms from even getting a vote is an untenable position. You can bet your bottom dollar—and every other dollar you have—that the Chamber will be hard at work to keep McConnell from letting the American people’s representatives in the Senate have a say in whether or not it passes—so as to protect the millions of dollars it invests to try to sway elections.</p> <p>In the text of the alert the Chamber sent to House members before the vote, the Chamber claims that American democracy “benefits from the robust participation of its citizens -- whether they choose to engage individually at the ballot box or collectively through a party, association, or corporation.” By referring to corporations in the context of “citizens,” the Chamber is invoking the notion of supposed “<a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/students-citizens-united-guide-corporate-personhood.pdf">corporate personhood</a>.” Notably, the Chamber also recoils at the idea that the bill would “have the practical effect of prohibiting associations, corporations, from engaging in the political process.” This is an uncharacteristic instance of the Chamber, usually careful to keep up the charade that it exists primarily to benefit small businesses, “<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rudy-giuliani-and-the-fine-art-saying-the-quiet-part-loud" title="">saying the quiet part loud</a>.” The Chamber exists to promote the interests of corporations and the ultra-wealthy, but rarely does it admit to such so blatantly.</p> <p>The reality is that voters <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/courts/news/2012/01/23/11007/americans-agree-corporations-arent-people/">do not believe that corporations are people</a> and believe that corporations have “<a href="https://openmarketsinstitute.org/blogs/76-americans-say-corporations-much-power/">too much power</a>” over politicians. By claiming that corporations have some unassailable right to a voice in our politics—which, due to the massive amounts of money corporations and their representative associations like the Chamber pour into lobbying and political advertising, inevitably drowns out the political voices of average Americans—the Chamber is making an argument that the public fundamentally disagrees with in an effort to convince the very same lawmakers whose coffers it lines that they benefit from the present system.</p> <p>Elsewhere in the alert, the Chamber argues that H.R. 1 would place unreasonable burden on the kinds of “issue ads” (effectively, <a href="https://www.citizen.org/article/primer-issue-ads">campaign ads in disguise</a>) corporations are allowed to air. Likewise, it claims that the bill’s requirement that organizations must disclose communications with candidates or elected officials is “onerous.” This is clearly a bad-faith argument; the Chamber knows full well which of its “issue ads” should rightfully be considered campaign ads, and the disclosure requirement is a very simple way of shining sunlight on who is really funding the ads and potential conflicts of interest held by our elected officials. But as per usual, the Chamber paints itself as the put-upon victim of some overly harsh punishment rather than the truth—that it is a massive spender in American politics and it simply wants to maintain the status quo where it can safely influence elections and legislation out of public sight.</p> <p>Luckily, the fate of H.R. 1 is not pre-ordained. No matter how much Sen. McConnell and the U.S. Chamber may want to deny the people the right to the kinds of reforms to our broken political system that they desperately want and need, they do not hold all the cards. By urging your senator to co-sponsor the bill when it is introduced in the Senate later this month, and to publicly demand that McConnell bring the bill to the floor for a vote, we can show that our democracy really is “for the people”—and no, “the people” does not include corporations.<br> <br> <em>U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </em><a href="http://chamberofcomm.wpengine.com/" target="_blank" title=""><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em> or follow us on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><span> </span><em>and </em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) CampaignFinance CampaignFinanceReform ChamberofCommerce Corporations DarkMoney democracyreform ForThePeopleAct HR1 Lobbying moneyinpolitics USChamber USChamberofCommerce VoterSuppression _1841804 Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:49:25 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/2/13/1834456/-The-US-Chamber-of-Commerce-s-Cabal-Opposing-Medicare-for-All-is-No-Justice-League <p>In superhero comics and movies, it’s not uncommon for groups of heroes to put aside their differences and team up to fight injustice (think the <em>Avengers</em> or the <em>Justice League</em>). By banding together and synergizing their powers, these team-ups allow the heroes to be much more powerful as a collective than they could be as individuals.</p> <p>This is a blog post about… not that.</p> <p>See, comics also frequently have villain team-ups, wherein a motley crew of ne’er-do-wells gang up to wreak more havoc on society as a group than they could on their own.  </p> <p>In November, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/11/20/medicare-for-all-healthcare-industry/">formed</a> what it called the “Partnership for America’s Health Care Future,” which is a coalition of American groups representing varied private health industries that reap enormous profits from health care costs paid by the American people. Though the Chamber likes to paint this as an alliance of heroes fighting for justice—a kind of real life <em>Justice League—</em>there’s plenty of good reason to believe it’s a team-up of the more villainous variety.</p> <p>These pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital special interests do not share the same goals on every issue, but on this one particular issue they are aligned with the U.S. Chamber: it is very profitable to them to keep the health care status quo in America. This is an issue so important to the Chamber that its president, Thomas Donohue, <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/424722-chamber-of-commerce-ceo-vows-to-use-all-of-its-resources-to-fight-single">said</a> during his 2019 annual <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/speech/2019-state-of-american-business-address">“State of American Business” address</a> that it plans to use “<a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/424722-chamber-of-commerce-ceo-vows-to-use-all-of-its-resources-to-fight-single">all of its resources</a>” to achieve its goal. That goal? Stopping single-payer healthcare. The Partnership’s desperation to stop the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/28/most-americans-now-support-medicare-for-all-and-free-college-tuition.html">growing</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/13/us/sanders-medicare-for-all-plan-support.html">momentum</a> and <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/403248-poll-seventy-percent-of-americans-support-medicare-for-all">popularity</a> of Medicare-for-All showcases a desire to preserve the status quo on the part of those who profit from it, no matter the cost to ordinary Americans.</p> <p>Here is the not-so-super reality: Compared to other developed nations, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-spending/u-s-health-spending-twice-other-countries-with-worse-results-idUSKCN1GP2YN">America spends far more to get far less in terms of health care results</a>. We live in a country <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2018/07/06/troublesome-news-numbers-of-uninsured-on-the-rise/#1fdb4dda4309">where 30 million people lack health insurance</a>; where even those who are insured face <a href="https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2016-summary-of-findings/">rising premiums</a>, the risk of <a href="https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/the-coverage-gap-uninsured-poor-adults-in-states-that-do-not-expand-medicaid/">gaps</a> in services covered, a confusing and frustrating <a href="https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/could-narrow-networks-be-the-next-big-cost-cutter/512298/">labyrinth</a> of in-network and <a href="http://files.kff.org/attachment/Report-Medicare-Advantage-How-Robust-Are-Plans-Physician-Networks">out-of-network</a> providers, and the possibility of <a href="https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/issue-brief/surprise-medical-bills/">enormous bills</a> leaving them deeply in debt or facing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/03/26/the-truth-about-medical-bankruptcies/?utm_term=.755d9b44d294">bankrupt</a>cy. Too many Americans <a href="http://files.kff.org/attachment/Fact-Sheet-Key-Facts-about-the-Uninsured-Population">feel afraid</a> to start their own small business (ostensibly a high priority for the Chamber) or to move to an area or work in the field of their choice because losing their employer-provided insurance could be <a href="https://www.commonwealthfund.org/sites/default/files/documents/___media_files_publications_issue_brief_2018_mar_collins_views_hlt_insurance_turbulent_year_aca_tracking_survey.pdf" title="">financially devastating</a>. Lack of access to adequate health insurance is a key reason Americans routinely skip needed treatment or <a href="https://consumer.healthday.com/encyclopedia/drug-center-16/misc-drugs-news-218/when-people-skip-medicines-on-purpose-648145.html">skip doses</a> of prescribed medications due to the cost. One study found that America had the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21917350" title="">highest rate of deaths preventable by access to appropriate health care</a> of the 16 industrialized nations it examined.</p> <p>Medicare-for-All would ensure universal coverage, allowing the 30 million currently uninsured Americans to finally <a href="https://www.kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kaiser-health-tracking-poll-march-2018-non-group-enrollees/" title="">seek the health care they need</a> but cannot afford. It would eliminate the problem of certain services, such as mental health care, being simply <a href="https://themighty.com/2018/01/cant-afford-mental-health-treatment/">unaffordable</a> for large segments of the population. It would do away with health insurance provider networks, which can result in patients unknowingly being treated by an out-of-network provider and stuck with an <a href="https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180929/NEWS/180929911">astronomical surprise bill</a>. It would keep Americans healthier by relieving the pressure to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2018/03/26/poll-44-of-americans-skip-doctor-visits-due-to-cost/#4f6b26396f57">skip out on preventive care.</a> And it would bring America in line with comparable developed nations in terms of the <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/single-payer-actually-huge-bargain/">superior results we’d be getting for our healthcare spending</a>.</p> <p>One thing that Medicare-for-All would not do, however, is allow the US Chamber and its private health industry cronies to continue getting richer while the rest of us suffer.</p> <p>The truth is that Medicare-for-All is not some world-threatening Big Bad that the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future is teaming up to defend the country from. In reality, it is just the opposite. And, since the Chamber and its big business allies are looking to maintain a health care system that places profits over people’s health, it’s no shocking plot twist that it is attempting to confuse and distract the public to hide that fact. That sort of conniving might make Lex Luthor or Dr. Doom let out a menacing cackle of delight.</p> <p>In the fight for Medicare-for-All, it is We the People—grassroots activists from across the nation and the politicians who represent us—who are the real superheroes. It’s time for We the People to band together to take on the enormous and intimidating foe of American corporate profiteers to demand a more just health care system for everyone in the U.S. Afterwards, the celebratory <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYiZeszLosE">shawarma</a> is on us.</p> <p><em>U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </em><a href="http://chamberofcomm.wpengine.com/" target="_blank"><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em> or follow us on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a> <em>and </em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) Activism ChamberofCommerce Grassroots HealthCare m4a MedicareForAll SinglePayer USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1834456 Wed, 13 Feb 2019 16:57:31 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/1/11/1825399/-New-Year-New-Congress-Same-Old-U-S-Chamber <p>Never at a loss for spinning its corporate-friendly agenda as somehow benefiting working Americans, yesterday’s “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/speech/2019-state-of-american-business-address">2019 State of American Business Address</a>” by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s CEO, Thomas J. Donohue, was a textbook example of using syrupy public relations-friendly language to mask the Chamber’s true intent. The speech laid out the Chamber’s policy priorities for 2019 and for the newly sworn-in 116th Congress in characteristically rosy terms.</p> <p>A closer look at what was officially called the “#AmericanDreams” speech, though, paints a starkly different picture from how it sounded on its surface. The vision Donohue laid out—of maintaining private, for-profit healthcare; of an unregulated pharmaceutical industry free to price gouge consumers; of unrestrained use of fossil fuels that would pollute our environment and further contribute to climate change; of policies preventing consumers and workers from suing corporations that have harmed or discriminated against them; and of a total lack of transparency in corporate political spending—would be more like an American Nightmare for the average citizen.</p> <p>When Donohue claims that the state of the economy is extremely strong, what he really means is that it’s great if you’re a CEO or wealthy stockholder raking in record<span> </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-corporate-profits-soared-in-second-quarter-boosted-by-tax-cuts-and-economic-growth-1535559230" title="">corporate profits</a><span> </span>and increased share values due to record<span> </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/18/stock-buybacks-hit-a-record-1point1-trillion-and-the-years-not-over.html">stock buybacks</a>. However, the average American has been facing years of wage stagnation, job insecurity, underemployment, and a dangerous lack of worker protections. And, when he says “prudent regulation,” he means fewer safeguards for workers, consumers, and the public at large.</p> <p>The Chamber’s well-funded and heavily-staffed lobby machine can be very savvy. So, when it says it will “take bipartisanship into account” we know that means that with a Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives in the 116th Congress, the Chamber cannot simply rely on congressional Republicans to pass its corporate agenda alone, as it’s done for years. And though the Chamber has added bipartisanship<span> </span><a href="https://www.uschamber.com/report/how-they-voted-scorecard-preview">as a criterion</a><span> </span>in its 2019 legislative scorecard (at 10% of total score, making it roughly the weighted equivalent of the “participation” grade in an average college class), these feints toward moderation are merely PR. Its policy advocacy is no less extreme in its tilt toward corporations and the extremely wealthy folks who make up its donor base and against the average consumer, worker or family.</p> <p>To wit: Donohue promises to “use all of our resources to combat” a single-payer healthcare system. Although such a system would overwhelmingly benefit the average American and is tremendously popular with the public, it would endanger the Chamber’s corporate buddies in the health industry, so the Chamber is now threatening to oppose it with all of its considerable lobbying might. Elsewhere in the speech, Donohue claims that protests of natural gas pipelines and the push to keep fossil fuels in the ground are causing undue strain on American traditional energy producers. In reality, this decline is because those entities are themselves fossils, tied to a business model that is no longer profitable (let alone prudent given the clear evidence of climate change). This willfully misleading stance proves the Chamber is just as beholden to the fossil fuel industry as ever.</p> <p>Later in the speech, Donohue claims that Americans’ right to file civil and class action suits “undermines justice” when really it protects vulnerable populations from powerful wealthy interests. And, when the Chamber says that the U.S. should restrict shareholder rights to “reform” publicly-owned corporations’ policies on matters such as disclosure of political spending, it really means it wants average investors to have less of a say and intends to do all it can to ensure secret money continues to be dumped into political campaigns.</p> <p>In all of these cases, the Chamber’s policy goal amounts to letting corporations do whatever they want with zero accountability and zero protection for the public interest. The Chamber may be attempting to put on a fresh new face to deal with a new Congress, but rest assured, its agenda is as pro-corporate and anti-Main Street as ever. Perhaps instead of promising to stand for “every child, every family, every worker, and every entrepreneur,” a more honest promise would be that the Chamber stands for “every corporation, every billionaire, every Big Bank, and every CEO.”<br> <br> <em>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span></em><a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title=""><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" title=""><em>Facebook</em></a><em>and<span> </span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) Chamber ChamberofCommerce classactions Climate ClimateChange consumerprotections Deregulation Labor MainStreet Regulation SecretMoney Trade Transparency USChamber USChamberofCommerce WallStreet _1825399 Fri, 11 Jan 2019 15:58:31 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/13/1812367/-Fed-Up-With-the-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-s-Anti-Democracy-Activities-So-is-This-New-Coalition <p>If you have followed Chamber Watch for long, you are intimately familiar with the reactionary, anti-democratic agenda of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As the nation’s <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s">largest lobbying group</a>, the Chamber is the poster-child for the toxic influence of moneyed interests in our system. As the <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/who-pays-for-political-ads/">largest spender of secret money</a> on political advertisements, the Chamber ensures that the public remains unaware of who is funding it, allowing its billionaire donors to <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Gilded_Chamber.pdf">remain in the shadows</a> while pouring unfathomable sums into our broken campaign finance system. And by bullying opponents into submission with <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber_litigation_report_part_1.pdf">overwhelming capacity for corporate litigation</a>, it plays a key role in hindering government efforts to impose and enforce commonsense safeguards and reforms protecting consumers, workers and the environment.</p> <p>The Chamber is a key bad actor, but it is not the only anti-democratic force in our system today. Our democracy is in crisis because of the influence of the corporate behemoths and billionaire donors on officials in power. The nexus between moneyed interests and office-holders has resulted in profoundly broken institutions that fail to protect average Americans the way they are meant to.</p> <p>From <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/7/18071438/midterm-election-results-voting-rights-georgia-florida">voter suppression</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/22/opinion/trump-cohen-mueller-investigation.html">open defiance of the rule of law</a><span><span>, </span></span>to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/11/05/newly-released-emails-suggest-zinke-contradicted-ethics-pledge/?utm_term=.9d954b8cf0f6">unchecked ethical violations</a>, American democracy is under a constant onslaught of attacks. The power of special interests in politics have  been wreaking havoc on our democracy for decades, resulting in a nation where average Americans have very little say over the direction the country is headed in and which policies are being enacted.</p> <p>But thankfully, a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/DeclarationforAmericanDemocracy/about/?ref=page_internal">new coalition</a> of over 100 organizations inside and outside Washington, representing a diverse range of issue areas and constituencies, has emerged to confront the monstrosity of corporate moneyed influence. The member organizations individually advocate for a number of different issues, but all of them commonly recognize that the only way to move forward on their particular issues is to start with foundational, systemic reforms. This coalition, the <a href="https://declarationforamericandemocracy.org/?fbclid=IwAR20nD5So0xfkbFURDohh045KrPqGnnULzfW0h7tZEcz0Wq3HZvFJNilAqo">Declaration for American Democracy</a>, made its formal debut via a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/31/job-democratic-house-sweeping-good-government-bill-groups-say/?fbclid=IwAR0lBe17OsLh0L3iK_gNWIzOZcuBGAOSbD95AJ6s9IKKTZUCTO1NZDrv1Qo&amp;noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.b7a6d8feb1ae" title="">press conference</a> on October 30. Now, following the midterm elections, the Declaration for American Democracy is committed to advocating for a large number of top-to-bottom reforms to address America’s crisis of democracy, starting with demands made of the 116th Congress.</p> <p><span><span>The basic demands of the Declaration for American Democracy are:</span></span></p> <ul> <li><span><span>Our democracy must ensure the freedom to vote and have that vote counted.</span></span></li> <li><span><span>Our democracy must be honest.</span></span></li> <li><span><span>Our democracy must have meaningful participation.</span></span></li> <li><span><span>Our democracy must provide transparency into our government and our elections.</span></span></li> <li><span><span>Our democracy must be responsive.</span></span></li> </ul> <p>The U.S. Chamber is a massive wrecking ball, bringing destruction to our democracy through its multipronged efforts of lobbying, secret money campaign finance spending. It and other groups representing massive corporate and billionaire funds have caused tremendous damage to our democracy.</p> <p>But it is not too late to repair our democracy, and bolster its foundations to prevent this kind of crisis from ever arising again. By <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/DeclarationforAmericanDemocracy/about/?ref=page_internal" title="">following</a> the <a href="https://twitter.com/demandemocracy" title="">Declaration for American Democracy</a> and supporting its efforts, you can take action to demand much-needed structural reform to our system. This is our democracy—not the U.S. Chamber’s, nor wealthy donors’. It’s time we reclaim it.<br> <br> <em>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span></em><a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title=""><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>and<span> </span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" title=""><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) anticorruption ChamberofCommerce Corruption DarkMoney Democracy democracyreform Lobbying moneyinpolitics Plutocracy SecretMoney USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1812367 Tue, 13 Nov 2018 14:03:03 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/9/1803052/-The-U-S-Chamber-and-the-Secret-Money-Black-Box <p>It’s a basic foundation of a democracy: voters need accurate information about candidates in order to fulfill their civic duty in casting their ballots. But increasingly, it seems that this tenet may no longer hold true in the United States. Not only is our campaign finance system built in a way that prioritizes the voices and opinions of extremely wealthy donors at a far disproportionate rate to average Americans, but nowadays, much of the nation’s political contributing is done in the shadows.</p> <p>Since the <em>Citizens United </em>Supreme Court decision in 2010, the political donor class has begun funneling their money through non-profit organizations that can effectively make it impossible to trace since they do not need to disclose their donors. These organizations range from so-called “social welfare” organizations that are truly just a way to create political advertisements without disclosing who paid for them to trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which engage in largescale political activity yet likewise do not disclose their donors.</p> <p>In fact, the Chamber is perhaps the single most active participant in this secret money sham. In Issue One’s new report, “<a href="https://www.issueone.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Dark-Money-Illuminated-Report.pdf">Dark Money Illuminated</a>,” the researchers find that between 2010 and 2016, the Chamber spent approximately $130 million on political advertisements—the most of any organization. It’s such an enormous total, in fact, that it accounts for roughly 1/6th of all political advertising spent by all secret money groups in that timespan. The Chamber is no stranger to massive election spending. As Public Citizen has previously reported, the Chamber spent about $30 million on the 2016 election cycle alone—<a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/exposing-u-s-chamber-commerce-gop-dark-money-machine/">and 100 percent of its spending was to benefit Republican candidates.</a></p> <p>And while we could make educated guesses as to who funds the Chamber—the Koch Brothers’ massive far-right donor network has <a href="https://www.citizenvox.org/2018/04/25/alec-the-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-kochs-inside-the-world-of-secret-money/">extensive ties</a> to the Chamber, for example—the reality is that the organization’s lack of donor disclosure makes the source of its vast sums of political spending money untraceable. Public Citizen <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Gilded_Chamber.pdf">has found</a> that in 2014, the Chamber reported 1,536 donations of $5,000 or greater, with the top 74 donors giving contributions of $500,000 and up, providing 57 percent of all its contributions for that year. Similarly, the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform, the arm of the Chamber dedicated to restricting consumer access to the courts and lobbying against more aggressive prosecution of corporate crimes, received 99 percent of its total contributions in 2014 from only 99 donors. It’s clear that a tiny number of extremely wealthy donors are funding the Chamber, which is in turn engaging in unparalleled levels of political spending. And all of it is happening in the dark.</p> <p>Unless serious reforms are made to our campaign finance system, the Chamber and other secret money groups can continue to bend our campaigns and public policy further toward the interests of the extremely wealthy using deep coffers of untraceable dollars. What sorts of reforms could be made?</p> <p>One important change would be issuance of <a href="https://www.brightlinesproject.org/about-us/" title="">clearer guidelines</a> setting the boundaries of what sorts of political activity different types of nonprofits are allowed to engage in—with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)’s vague “facts and circumstances” approach proving wholly inadequate. Public Citizen’s <a href="https://www.brightlinesproject.org/about-us/">Bright Lines Project</a> proposes the completion of a <a href="https://www.brightlinesproject.org/solutions/irs-rulemaking/">Treasury and IRS rulemaking</a>, as well as various <a href="https://www.brightlinesproject.org/solutions/regulatory/">regulatory</a> and <a href="https://www.brightlinesproject.org/solutions/legislative/">legislative</a> solutions to the problem of vague definitions of political activity.</p> <p>Furthermore, Congress has various legislative solutions at its disposal. It could pass the <a href="https://www.citizen.org/media/press-releases/disclose-act-would-close-loopholes-prevent-enforcement-foreign-donation-rules">DISCLOSE Act</a> so that secret money groups like the Chamber are required to disclose the sources of the funds behind campaign ads on traditional media, such as TV, radio and print. It could also pass the <a href="https://www.citizen.org/media/press-releases/legislation-calls-needed-transparency-campaign-ads-internet-secret-foreign">Honest Ads Act</a>, which would provide more transparency for campaign ads on the internet. Similarly, the Federal Election Commission (FEC)’s proposed rulemaking on disclosure of funding for internet advertisements should contain <a href="https://www.citizenvox.org/2018/05/30/fec-must-prevent-foreign-meddling/">robust protections</a> to ensure that voters know who is behind the advertisements they see. The FEC is also <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/fec-deadlock-update-april-2015.pdf">roiled in partisan deadlock</a>, and substantial changes should be made to the agency’s structure to reduce its dysfunction and make it a more effective enforcer.</p> <p>Another solution to this issue of secret money is to require corporations to publicly disclose their political spending. This would mean that corporations could no longer secretly donate to “social welfare” nonprofit organizations or trade associations like the Chamber to effectively lobby on their behalf. Because few corporations are likely to choose transparency of their own accord, the <a href="https://corporatereformcoalition.org/">Corporate Reform Coalition</a> works to <a href="https://corporatereformcoalition.org/companies">persuade shareholders</a> of publicly-owned corporations to vote in favor of disclosure requirements at shareholder meetings. The coalition also advocates for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to finish a <a href="http://www.sec.gov/comments/4-637/4-637.shtml">rulemaking</a> requiring corporate political spending disclosure at the federal level.</p> <p>Last but not least, the option exists to confront the problem of secret money at its roots: the <em>Citizens United </em>decision and other Supreme Court decisions that have given rise to our campaign finance system. The <a href="https://democracyisforpeople.org/">Democracy Is For People</a> campaign is a people’s movement <a href="https://action.citizen.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=12392">calling for</a> a constitutional amendment to overturn <em>Citizens United</em> and related rulings that undermine our democracy.</p> <p>There is no shortage of solutions to keep organizations like the U.S. Chamber from allowing the flow of political information in our country to be dominated by the interests of the extremely wealthy through secret money. Congress and the administration should work quickly to address this blatant affront to democracy. Voters need to be in control of our democracy, and that means having all of the information about who is trying to influence their vote, not allowing billionaires to pull strings while hiding in the shadows.</p> <p><em>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span></em><a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/"><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>and<span> </span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce CitizensUnited CorporatePersonHood DarkMoney DiscloseAct FEC moneyinpolitics PoliticalAds SEC SecretMoney USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1803052 Tue, 09 Oct 2018 14:57:56 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/9/10/1794742/-In-Judge-Kavanaugh-The-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-Sees-an-Appealing-Ally <p>As the country anxiously watches the Senate Judiciary Committee conduct hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice, the nation’s political dialogue has been ablaze. Not to be left out, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined the fray recently with a blog post titled “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/series/above-the-fold/the-right-judge-the-job" title="">The Right Judge for the Job</a>.” The post, by Chamber president Tom Donohue, is exactly what it sounds like: a full-throated endorsement of Kavanaugh’s confirmation.</p> <p>Public Citizen’s U.S. Chamber Watch project has frequently exposed the Chamber’s long-established right-wing leanings, from its <a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/2016_12_5_the_republican_party_and_the_chamber_of_secrets_final_0.pdf" title="">campaign donations</a> to the <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber-partisanship-report.pdf" title="">revolving door of staffers</a> between the Chamber and various conservative institutions. But even by the Chamber’s standards, this endorsement is jaw-dropping. As the Chamber claims to be a politically unbiased institution only looking out for business interests, you would be forgiven for raising an eyebrow at the Chamber endorsing President Trump’s recent Supreme Court nominee. When you begin to dig into Judge Kavanaugh’s history of rulings, though, the Chamber’s support for his confirmation starts to make a whole lot of sense.</p> <p>In a recent <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/judge-kavanaugh-business-decisions/">report</a>, Chamber Watch found that <strong>in 25 of the 33 cases (76%) in which the Chamber, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), or the American Petroleum Institute (API) participated as party or amicus curiae, Kavanaugh sided with the position </strong>advanced by the business groups.</p> <p>This investigation serves to underscore the extent to which the Chamber’s legal activity now intersects with federal policy. As Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, put it, “Over the past several decades, big business associations, led by the Chamber, have become far more active in federal litigation. The involvement of these associations signals to judges what the Chamber and other trade associations believe to be important.”</p> <p>It is also consistent with another recent Public Citizen <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/kavanaugh-split-decisions-report.pdf" title="">report</a> that found that in 87% of cases, Judge Kavanaugh’s opinion in split-decision on issues like regulatory issues, environmental protection, and worker rights sided with Big Business and against the public interest. These issues are some of the Chamber’s top priorities; the Chamber wants fewer consumer safeguards, fewer environmental standards, and fewer labor protections, because those policies let it pursue higher profits no matter the human cost.</p> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl"><img alt="kavanaugh_big_business.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/587172/large/kavanaugh_big_business.jpg?1536606032" title="kavanaugh_big_business.jpg"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> <p>With all of this in mind, the Chamber’s fulsome endorsement of Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation begins to look brazenly self-interested. It wants an ally on the Court who will rule with its arguments in litigation and with its policy agenda. Based on Kavanaugh’s history of rulings, it may have made a safe bet.<br> <br> <em>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span></em><a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title=""><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" title=""><em>Facebook</em></a><em>and<span> </span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" title=""><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) AmericanPetroleumInstitute Amicuscuriae BigBusiness BrettKavanaugh ChamberofCommerce Corporations Litigation NationalAssociationofManufacturers SCOTUS SupremeCourt USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1794742 Mon, 10 Sep 2018 19:02:32 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/6/27/1775986/-The-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-Doesn-t-Want-You-To-Know-Who-Owns-U-S-Businesses <p>Do you know who owns the corner store in your neighborhood? How about the local plumber or woodworking business? Almost certainly, the answer is that the founders of these small businesses are the owners, and they receive the money that they make in revenue. In a lot of cases, though, it’s not nearly that obvious or transparent—and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would like to keep it that way.</p> <p>Presently, companies are <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/state-incorporation-laws-good-for-crooks-bad-for-banks/">not required by federal law</a> to disclose their “<em>beneficial owner”</em>— the <em>real person</em> who exercises control over the operations of the company or who ultimately receives the substantial economic benefits of the company. Right now, most states require <a href="https://thefactcoalition.org/issues/incorporation-transparency">more information to check out a library book</a> than to start a corporation. And states allow corporate formation agents to fill out paperwork on behalf of secret clients, and even let shell companies form additional secret corporations like Russian nesting dolls of anonymity. The <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/latest-news/article213380974.html">Panama Papers</a> and Paradise Papers showed how secret companies are a global problem, but the problem is not exclusive to tropical getaways-- the U.S. is a <a href="https://www.icij.org/blog/2018/05/michael-cohen-scandal-a-reminder-that-the-u-s-is-a-tax-secrecy-paradise/">major enabler</a> of corporate secrecy.</p> <p>This lack of corporate transparency has some troubling implications. For one, nondisclosure of beneficial ownership can be a key enabler of <a href="https://www.acams.org/aml-white-paper-beneficial-ownership/">money laundering</a> as well as other secretive funding of criminal activities including terrorism, drug trafficking, and <a href="https://polarisproject.org/news/press-releases/corporate-secrecy-fuels-human-trafficking-united-states">human trafficking</a>. In short, the more difficult it is for authorities to track where and to whom money is flowing, and who owns particular assets, the easier it is for global and domestic bad actors to get away with criminal activity. In the United States, these anonymous shell companies have been <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/corruption-and-money-laundering/great-rip-off/">used by criminals</a> to carry out Medicare fraud, arms trafficking, and cheating people out of their savings using fraudulent investment schemes, all shielded from the prying eyes of law enforcement officials. So why does the Chamber <a href="https://www.moneylaunderingwatchblog.com/2018/02/aml-bsa-focus-by-u-s-senate-committee-testimony-from-beneficial-ownership-to-crypto-currency/">oppose</a> efforts to change federal laws mandating disclosure of beneficial ownership? According to the Chamber's own <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/020618_brian_oshea_testimony_beneficial_ownership.pdf">testimony</a>, “The Chamber and its members are committed to fighting criminals, terrorists, foreign powers, money launderers and any others who would misuse the U.S. financial system to carry out illicit schemes that harm our nation.”</p> <p>But the testimony proceeded to argue that mandated disclosure of beneficial ownership is supposedly a misguided, flawed way to do that. This disclosure policy, the Chamber argues, would be “overly broad” and “unworkable” and would supposedly cause too much harm to law abiding small and medium-sized businesses.</p> <p>This runs directly counter to <a href="http://smallbusinessmajority.org/sites/default/files/research-reports/040418-Corporate-Ownership-Disclosure-Poll.pdf">polling of small businesses</a> that shows strong support in favor of disclosure of beneficial ownership. And, the Chamber is putting forward flawed arguments. For one, the Chamber’s concerns that law abiding business owners would have their privacy invaded by disclosure mandates is dishonest; information the Chamber mentions, such as driver’s license numbers, would not be public domain. This information would not be released for everyone’s access, it would simply be disclosed to authorities. Second, the Chamber raises the possibility that good faith mistakes in filing the required paperwork would lead to innocent business owners being punished—but <a href="https://thefactcoalition.org/briefing-memo-analysis-of-concerns-raised-by-opponents-of-the-draft-counter-terrorism-and-illicit-finance-act?utm_medium=policy-analysis/briefing-memos">existing proposals</a> for mandated beneficial ownership disclosure make clear that errors will only be punished if they are done “knowingly” and “willfully” (i.e. fraudulently). These proposals would hardly place an unbearable burden on legitimate businesses.</p> <p>Besides, the kinds of businesses the Chamber worries would be collateral are not the kinds of companies that proposals for mandated beneficial ownership disclosure target. “Real” companies with lots of employees, shareholders, and profits are exempt from, for instance, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1454">TITLE Act</a>, as are companies that are registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.</p> <p>These spurious arguments on behalf of the Chamber raise serious questions about why the trade association wants to keep this information out of the hands of law enforcement officials. Certainly, very wealthy CEOs like the executives of the Chamber’s member companies may be exactly the sort of people using<a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/04/13/474101127/want-to-set-up-a-shell-corporation-to-hide-your-millions-no-problem">  shell companies</a> to hide assets to avoid having to pay taxes on assets the federal government does not know about. The classic image we have of “tax evasion” is of money stashed in a bank in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland, but the reality is that current beneficial ownership laws make it shockingly easy for the wealthy to create anonymous shell companies to hide their assets wherever they want to.</p> <p>Furthermore, the right-wing organization American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has <a href="https://www.alec.org/article/beneficial-ownership-disclosure-a-huge-donor-disclosure-threat/">openly stated</a> that its own opposition to beneficial ownership disclosure proposals is to protect the ability for extremely wealthy donors to influence elections and policymaking with secret money. ALEC claims that such proposals would “mak[e] it easier to attack supporters of viewpoints that are not politically correct or popular with the mainstream media”—in other words, the right-wing viewpoints of ALEC’s membership. The Chamber has extensive <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce#Ties_to_the_American_Legislative_Exchange_Council">ties to ALEC</a>, having sat on many of ALEC’s task forces and having pursued much of the <a href="https://www.citizenvox.org/2018/04/25/alec-the-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-kochs-inside-the-world-of-secret-money/">same policy agenda</a>. It’s likely that the <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber-partisanship-report.pdf" title="">similarly right-wing</a> Chamber holds views on beneficial ownership disclosure laws as it relates to secret influence of elections similar to its friends at ALEC.</p> <p>The Chamber claims to support efforts to stop human trafficking, drug trafficking, terrorism, money laundering and other crimes. But by opposing corporate beneficial ownership disclosure proposals, it ultimately stands in the way of those efforts. The Chamber may publicly claim that it’s just acting out of concern for law-abiding small businesses, but closer scrutiny reveals that their true rationale might be slightly less innocent than that.<br> <br> <em>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span></em><a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/"><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>and<span> </span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" title=""><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) CampaignFinance ChamberofCommerce financialcrime FinCen HumanTrafficking MoneyLaundering SecretMoney ShellCompanies taxevasion Terrorism USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1775986 Wed, 27 Jun 2018 19:29:16 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/6/21/1773915/-Senator-Calls-Out-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-s-Role-in-Propping-Up-Big-Oil-Blocking-Climate-Solutions <p>If you have been following this blog for a while, you know full well that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s hostility to environmental solutions is nothing new. To give just a couple of examples, the Chamber <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/us/obama-unveils-plan-to-sharply-limit-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html">litigated</a> against the Clean Air Act; it co-sponsored a sham <a href="http://accf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/170316-NERA-ACCF-Full-Report.pdf">study</a> that President Trump later cited to justify withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord; it has <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber_litigation_report_part_1.pdf">sued</a> the EPA at least 15 times; and it once even infamously <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/25/nation/na-climate-trial25">called for</a> a “Scopes Monkey Trial of the 21st century” to put climate science on trial. Public Citizen even debated the U.S. Chamber on <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/video/pollution-solution-or-job-killer-experts-make-the-case-on-epa-proposal-274957379738">NBC’s <em>Meet the Press</em></a><em> </em>over Obama’s EPA plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.</p> <p>Others have taken notice of the Chamber throwing its weight around in the energy arena, including Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). In a recent <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/big-oils-lobbying-belies-talk-on-climate-whitehouse-warns-pope">letter</a> to Pope Francis, Sen. Whitehouse highlighted how the Pope’s global goal of climate action and emissions reductions is being undercut in the United States by the massive lobbying power of Big Oil. Sen. Whitehouse even explicitly called out the Chamber’s role in Big Oil’s sabotage of efforts at climate solutions, noting that “[g]roups like the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and others have been employed as adversaries of meaningful climate legislation, in some cases with little apparent support for their opposition from the majority of the companies that make up their membership.”</p> <p>The senator hit the nail on the head when it comes to the role the U.S. Chamber plays in propping up Big Oil’s lobbying efforts. The Chamber is collectively receiving <a href="https://www.corporateaccountability.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/cai_Bonn2017_digital_FINAL.pdf">millions of dollars</a> from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Conoco Philips, Occidental Petroleum, Philips 66, Hess, Apache, Tesoro Petroleum, Marathon Oil, Marathon Petroleum, and Noble Energy—and those are just the companies we know about because of their own spending disclosures, given that the Chamber does not disclose its donors. All of this adds up to massive lobbying power in the legislative sphere directed toward Big Oil’s interests, as the Chamber was, in 2017, the <a href="http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/318177-lobbyings-top-50-whos-spending-big">largest lobbying organization</a> by spending in the country.</p> <p>For its part, the Chamber is not at all ashamed of its role in propping up polluting energy sources to the exclusion of clean energy solutions that could ameliorate the effects of climate change or slow it down. Earlier this month, Chamber president Thomas J. Donohue published a <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/series/above-the-fold/america-seizes-control-of-its-energy-destiny">blog post</a> entitled “America Seizes Control of Its Energy Destiny,” celebrating the U.S.’s massively renewed focus on fossil fuel extraction and supply “bolstered by the Trump administration’s emphasis on pro-growth energy policies.” In other words, the Big Oil companies that make up the Chamber’s members and donors stand to profit hugely off of a shameless return to promoting fossil fuels to the detriment of green, renewable energy sources—and our environment.</p> <p>Donohue’s post also promotes the Chamber’s <a href="https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/">Global Energy Institute</a>, which works to “unify policymakers, regulators, business leaders and the American public” behind a Big Oil-friendly energy agenda. The Institute proudly touts buzzwords like “innovation,” “clean energy,” and “efficiency,” but the actual policies it advocates for are just the opposite. For example, it <a href="https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/oil-natural-gas">calls</a> for offshore drilling and hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) that represent the same things Big Oil has always wanted: domination of the U.S. energy market to maximize profit, with no regard for the environmental destruction caused along the way.</p> <p>True to form, the Chamber has also been painting the fossil fuel industry as the put-upon victim of vicious attacks by some massive opposition out to get them. In a recent post called “The Climate Change Tort Racket,” the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform <a href="https://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/resource/the-climate-change-tort-racket">wrote</a> that “[p]laintiffs’ attorneys and left-leaning politicians are ganging up to shake down big oil.” The post asserts that these big bad plaintiffs are seeking to rob the poor oil industry of its resources, “looking for quick cash.” This, of course, ignores the plainly observable reality that Big Oil is a lobbying behemoth, armed with all of the legal power that the money of corporate mammoths can buy. Big Oil is Goliath, not David. Not to mention that Big Oil’s business is threatening all of human civilization with runaway global warming, and <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/">Big Oil</a> has <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05042018/shell-knew-scientists-climate-change-risks-fossil-fuels-global-warming-company-documents-netherlands-lawsuits">known about the threat</a> longer than just about anyone and has been actively lying about it.</p> <p>As Sen. Whitehouse’s letter to Pope Francis makes clear, the Big Oil lobby in the U.S., as propped up by the likes of the U.S. Chamber, has been an immovable obstacle in the way of the United States meeting its global obligations to reduce carbon emissions and promote climate solutions. Through blocking meaningful climate legislation, and through lobbying an extremely corporate-friendly Republican-controlled White House and Congress to remove barriers on the fossil fuel industry and deter them from alternative energy sources, the hope for the U.S. to be a global leader on climate issues seems grim.</p> <p>Still, all hope is not lost. <a href="https://www.eenews.net/assets/2017/03/20/document_pm_03.pdf">Nearly half</a> of the Chamber’s board members have taken pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and a number of companies have <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/another-company-leaves-u-s-chamber-commerce-organizations-environmental-policies/">already left</a> the Chamber over its environmental policies. Customers who buy products from otherwise forward-thinking companies speaking out is one of the best ways to create enough momentum to get our nation’s leaders to finally stand up to Big Oil, fully embrace clean, renewable energy and become a force for positive global impact on mitigating climate change. By pressuring the Chamber’s members to <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/disney-gap-pepsi-know-money-used-fund-trump-agenda/">#DropTheChamber</a> and <a href="https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/sign-the-petition-to-corporate-execs-stop-funding-pro-trump-us-chamber-of-commerce?source=Chamber201706_PC">signing the petition</a> to urge Pepsi, Disney, and Gap to stop funding the Chamber, the public can play a major role in moving the 800 pound gorilla that is the Chamber away from its current status quo of squashing climate solutions.<br> <br> <em>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </em><a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/"><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em> or follow us on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em>Facebook</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) BigOil ChamberofCommerce ClimateChange Emissions Environmentalism FossilFuels USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1773915 Thu, 21 Jun 2018 16:39:06 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/6/7/1770179/-By-Supporting-the-Bank-Lobbyist-Act-the-U-S-Chamber-Puts-Wall-Street-Profits-Before-Taxpayers <p>After the financial industry’s crash in 2008, taxpayers footed a bill for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/28/bank-bailout-cost-taxpayers">hundreds of billions of dollars</a> for bank bailouts. In the wake of the crash, the U.S. government <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/why-arent-any-bankers-in-prison-for-causing-the-financial-crisis/496232/">failed to prosecute</a> any of the top bankers responsible for it. And, last December, the G.O.P. passed a tax cut that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/us/politics/banks-are-big-winners-from-tax-cut.html" title="">showered more wealth</a> on bankers than any other sector. In so many ways, the sector responsible for a global economic meltdown has been rewarded, not punished, for their misconduct.</p> <p>Apparently, this lack of consequences isn’t good enough for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. After the U.S. House of Representatives passed S. 2155, dubbed the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/business/wall-street-banks-dodd-frank.html">Bank Lobbyist Act</a>” by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, on May 22, the Chamber released a <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-statement-house-passage-of-bank-relief-legislation">statement</a> applauding the passage of the banking deregulatory bill (which was subsequently signed into law by the president). The Chamber pushed hard for this bill: it issued key letters to both the<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/key-vote-letter-the-us-senate-the-economic-growth-regulatory-relief-and-consumer-protection"> Senate</a> and <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/key-vote-letter-the-us-house-the-economic-growth-regulatory-relief-and-consumer-protection">House</a>, and hosted an event earlier in the year with acting CFPB director Mick Mulvaney and Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon calling for “bank relief.” S. 2155, which reduces oversight over many banks and rolls back a number of the consumer protections enacted in the Dodd-Frank Act’s reforms, is just the sort of giveaway to Wall Street that the Chamber has consistently advocated for.</p> <p>As is the Chamber’s M.O., advocating for this bill was couched in the language of “restoring small business lending” and abolishing “one-size-fits-all regulations” that were supposedly hampering small community banks. The problem is that that’s not an accurate reflection of the country’s economic landscape prior to the bill’s passage, nor is it a good description of what the bill actually does.</p> <p>The reality is that the “Bank Lobbyist Act” reduces oversight on <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/372764-beware-of-the-bank-deregulation-trojan-horse">25 of the 38 biggest banks</a>. It strips away many critical consumer protections, including provisions to prevent <a href="https://medium.com/california-reinvestment-coalition/bank-lobbyist-act-makes-it-easier-for-banks-to-discriminate-in-lending-1d154b8c36ef">racial discrimination in lending</a>. It removes many of the guidelines keeping banks from engaging in the same sort of risky gambling activity that led to the crash just ten years ago. And, of course, when banks gamble with their deposits, those are funds that are not being used for the loans people need to buy a home or start a business. Allowing this sort of risky banking practices is setting up American taxpayers to potentially be on the hook for another bailout on their dime should the financial sector crash again.</p> <p>As for those supposedly hamstrung banks the Chamber is supposedly selflessly looking out for? They were already doing just fine before the bill passed. The industry reaped <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-banks-report-record-first-quarter-profit-1526999856">a record $56 billion in net income</a> in the first quarter of 2018. Even the small banks, whose financial wellness the Chamber prioritizes in its PR materials, were hardly suffering; loan balances at community banks <a href="https://slate.com/business/2018/03/there-is-no-good-reason-to-deregulate-the-banks.html">rose significantly more</a> in 2017 than across all banks. And the Chamber claims that small business owners have been hobbled by a lack of availability of credit in recent years, but according to the Federal Reserve’s September 2017 <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/sbfreport2017.pdf">report</a>, credit availability for small businesses has greatly improved in recent years and reached a stable point. It seems community banks and small businesses are just a smokescreen to make this Wall Street giveaway, the true goal of the bill, more palatable.</p> <p>After the 2008 crisis, bankers did just fine. It’s the American people who suffered, losing countless jobs, savings, and homes. For the U.S. Chamber, it looks like risking a repeat of the Great Recession is worth it for the sake of Wall Street lining its pockets.<br> <br> <em><span><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span></span></span></span></span></em><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/"><em><span><span><span><span><span><span>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</span></span></span></span></span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span></span></span></span></span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em><span><span>Facebook</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span>and<span> </span></span></span></span></span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em><span><span><span><span><span><span>Twitter</span></span></span></span></span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) Bailout BankLobbyistAct BigBanks ChamberofCommerce Consumerprotection Crapo Finance FinancialReform S2155 USChamber USChamberofCommerce WallStreet _1770179 Thu, 07 Jun 2018 19:53:08 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/6/1/1768512/-U-S-Chamber-Files-SCOTUS-Brief-In-Support-of-Forced-Arbitration-for-Employees <p><span>One of the most important legal tools that exists to protect against corporate wrongdoing is allowing harmed individuals to band together to sue as a class or collective action. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-21/supreme-court-says-employers-can-bar-worker-class-action-suits-jhgbqpz0"><span>ruled</span></a><span> that employers can use forced arbitration clauses in employment contracts to block employees from bringing collective and class action lawsuits against their employer. As a result, e<span>mployers will have free rein to force employees to sign arbitration agreements that waive the right to bring collective or class actions as a condition of employment. </span></span></p> <p><span>This is a devastating blow to workers’ rights because it is difficult for workers to prove violations of the law such as wage theft or discrimination if they cannot band together with co-workers to show a pattern of abuse. Class actions are also more efficient and can be the only feasible way to bring small dollar claims since the cost of bringing a case can outweigh the monetary harm to any one person but the wrongdoing was widespread. Last week’s SCOTUS decision, <em><span>Epic Systems v. Lewis</span></em><span>, will herald in an era of further restrictions for </span>workers’ access to the courts and drastically weaken the ability to achieve justice in the face of accountability for employers’ wrongdoing. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s hands are all over this misguided decision.</span></p> <p>The Chamber filed a “friend of the court” amicus <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/16-285-16-300-cert-amicus-chamber.pdf">brief</a> in support of the employers, arguing that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) does not protect against forced arbitration as the employees’ legal team argued it does. It makes sense that the Chamber is so invested in advocating for weak employee protections; this fits in with the Chamber’s <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/7/1761772/-The-U-S-Chamber-s-Next-Assault-on-Labor-Crushing-Worker-Centers">long</a> <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/u-s-chamber-commerces-embrace-gig-economy-points-downside-workers/">legacy</a> of <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/puzder-chamber-labor-love/">hostility</a> toward workers’ rights. The corporations that make up the Chamber’s membership have a financial interest in employers’ unmitigated ability to dictate all the terms of employees’ contracts.</p> <p>The Chamber’s allies in the corporate sphere are already jumping at the opportunities provided by the Court’s decision. Shortly after the decision was announced, employment firm Ogletree Deakins <a href="https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2018/05/23/ogletree-launches-tool-to-automate-arbitration-agreements-following-scotus-decision/">released</a> an automated ‘DIY’ tool for companies to include forced arbitration clauses in their contracts.</p> <p>The Supreme Court’s ruling is alarming to civil rights and consumer rights activists who worry that the decision will limit employees’ access to justice in order to fight a whole host of corporate wrongdoing including discrimination, wage theft, and sexual harassment. Just this week, in light of the <em>Epic</em> decision, Chipotle <a href="https://onlabor.org/todays-news-commentary-may-28-2018/">petitioned a court</a> to exclude more than 2,000 persons from an ongoing wage theft lawsuit because the company argued the workers signed arbitration agreements that prohibited them from joining any class actions.</p> <p>In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that "[i]t would be grossly exorbitant to read the FAA [Federal Arbitration Act] to devastate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other laws enacted to eliminate, root and branch, class-based employment discrimination.” She also called on Congress to pass legislation that would affirm the right of employees to join class actions to oppose discriminatory employment contracts such as violations of equal pay for women.</p> <p><span>Public Citizen is committed to doing just that by working to make sure the Arbitration Fairness Act is passed, which prohibits forced arbitration for employment, consumer, antitrust or civil rights disputes, and also by <a href="https://www.citizen.org/media/press-releases/forcing-workers-arbitration-does-not-align-amazon%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98day-one%E2%80%99-philosophy" target="_blank">spearheading</a> corporate <a href="https://gizmodo.com/thousands-call-on-amazon-to-stop-forcing-contractors-to-1826426289" target="_blank">campaigns</a></span><span> </span><span>to call on individual companies to voluntarily end the use of forced arbitration clauses. If the Arbitration Fairness Act were to receive a vote—something that’s not likely in the current Congress, unfortunately—you can bet that the Chamber’s voice would bellow in opposition as it has done in the</span> <a href="http://citizen.typepad.com/watchdog_blog/2008/04/u-s-chamber-of.html">past</a>.</p> <p>As Public Citizen noted in its own friend of the court <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16-285-16-300-bsac-16-307-tsac-Public-Citizen.pdf">brief</a> that we filed in support of workers, access to the courts is an essential right for workers and consumers to in standing up to corporate abuses. The Chamber, it seems, would prefer to let those abuses run rampant.</p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </span></span></span></span></em><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/"><em><span><span><span><span><span><span>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</span></span></span></span></span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span> or follow us on </span></span></span></span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em><span><span>Facebook</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span> and </span></span></span></span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em><span><span><span><span><span><span>Twitter</span></span></span></span></span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce Discrimination employmentprotections EqualPay forcedarbitration SCOTUS SupremeCourt USChamber USChamberofCommerce WorkersRights _1768512 Fri, 01 Jun 2018 15:26:30 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/5/7/1761772/-The-U-S-Chamber-s-Next-Assault-on-Labor-Crushing-Worker-Centers <p>It will likely not surprise you that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/u-s-chamber-commerces-embrace-gig-economy-points-downside-workers/">not</a> too <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/u-s-chamber-commerce-pushes-dangerous-nlrb-nominees-effort-stack-deck-workers/">fond</a> of <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/puzder-chamber-labor-love/">unions</a>. The ability for workers to collectively bargain and improve the conditions of their employment is a threat to the bottom lines of the corporations that make up the Chamber’s membership. The Chamber is motivated to block the power of unions by its desire for corporations to have the ability to keep wages low for their workforce, to limit workplace safety protections, and to make sure that workers can’t fight back.</p> <p>What you may not know, however, is that the Chamber also opposes other, non-union labor initiatives. Enter worker centers. <a href="https://aflcio.org/what-unions-do/social-economic-justice/worker-centers">Worker centers</a> are groups of working people from certain sectors who do not have the legal right to collectively bargain, but are nevertheless an important force in advocating for the rights of workers and their communities. Worker centers might <a href="http://www.iwj.org/network/workers-centers">organize</a> for better wages and benefits, or they might <a href="http://lawatthemargins.com/perspectives-worker-centers-and-the-afl-cio-national-convention/" title="">educate the public</a> about injustices such as racism in the labor market. They do not have the same legal status as a union, but they provide a valuable safety net to workers who do not or cannot belong to a union.</p> <p>Apparently, the Chamber is outraged by even that level of worker protection. They have taken up the mantle of <a href="https://splinternews.com/the-u-s-chamber-of-commerce-is-a-legit-villain-1825564631">impugning</a> worker centers with the ultimate goal of doing away with them. In April, the Chamber released a report entitled “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/uscc_worker_center_report_april_2018.pdf" title="">Worker Centers: Union Front Groups and the Law</a>.” In it, the Chamber lays out the argument that worker centers are “union front groups”—that is, that they are secretly unions going by another name and should be regulated the same way unions are. This is transparently absurd: worker centers exist specifically to serve populations that are <em>not </em>served by unions, and they lack the power to collectively bargain, which is one of the defining attributes of unions. The Chamber would have us ignore this clear distinction because it is inconvenient for its narrative.</p> <p>As is so often the case, this effort to dismantle the power of worker centers by the Chamber mirrors a <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gop-to-look-at-union-connected-nonprofit-worker-centers">similar effort</a> by the GOP. House Republicans have vowed to make the same changes to worker centers’ legal classification as the Chamber is advocating for.</p> <p>Of course, if the Chamber and its buddies in the GOP truly felt that worker centers are secretly unions, they could say that centers should have all of the same collective bargaining power as unions do. But of course they won’t do that, because these arguments are in bad faith: the Chamber and its allies know full well that worker centers are merely a minimal line of defense for workers who have nothing else to protect them, and are unable to tolerate even that meager level of worker protections.</p> <p>It should not surprise us that the Chamber takes such consistently anti-worker stances. However, it actually may surprise the corporations that are members of the Chamber and proclaim to care about their workers’ lives and well-being. For instance, <a href="http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/scale-for-good/our-people-and-communities/respecting-human-rights.html">McDonald’s</a> and <a href="http://www.gapincsustainability.com/people/improving-factory-working-conditions/respecting-human-rights">Gap</a> both having sections on their websites about respecting the human rights of their workers. These companies should take a long look at the Chamber’s appalling record on workers’ rights and withdraw their funding and support for the Chamber.</p> <p><em>Photo credit: Flickr user <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/5559745430">Washington State Dept. of Transportation</a> | CC BY 2.0</em></p> <p><span><em><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span></span></span></span></em><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/"><em><span><span>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span></span></span></span></em><em><span><span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a> </span></span></em><em><span><span><span>and<span> </span></span></span></span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em><span><span>Twitter</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span>.</span></span></span></em></span></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce CollectiveBargaining Labor Unions USChamber USChamberofCommerce WorkerCenters Workers _1761772 Mon, 07 May 2018 13:03:24 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/4/22/1758633/-On-Earth-Day-Companies-Should-Rethink-Their-Support-for-The-U-S-Chamber <p>This Earth Day, we hope you will take some time to join with us in reflecting on the effect our lifestyles have on the planet and to make positive changes. We would also like for corporations that claim to be environmentally responsible to have that same introspection and take forward-thinking action.</p> <p>Earlier this month, Australian miner BHP Billiton <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bhp-coal-climatechange/bhp-says-to-quit-global-coal-lobby-group-stick-with-u-s-chamber-of-commerce-idUSKCN1HC075?il=0" title="">finalized its decision</a> that it would be withdrawing from the World Coal Association over differences on climate change. Notably, it also announced it would remain a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Previously, the miner has been an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/bhp-threatens-exit-from-coal-lobby-chamber-of-commerce-1513688988" title="">outspoken</a> advocate for the Paris Climate Agreement and was publicly <a href="https://www.upi.com/BHP-defends-climate-positions-and-Paris-support/9931513691921/" title="">considering leaving</a> the Chamber over the Chamber’s lobbying against the Agreement. Even a brief glance at the Chamber’s shameful history on environmental issues reveals what a mistake BHP has made in staying with the Chamber.</p> <p>The Chamber habitually throws around its more than <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Gilded_Chamber.pdf" title="">$272 million</a> in corporate-donated money and its significant <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/swamped-tax-report-update_0.pdf" title="">lobbying weight</a> to pursue a <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/challengingthechamber/energy/">climate agenda</a> beholden to the fossil fuel industry and <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/u-s-chamber-say-au-revoir-paris-agreement-bonjour-big-oil/" title="">Big Oil</a>. It has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/us/obama-unveils-plan-to-sharply-limit-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html" title="">frequently stood in opposition</a> to environmental safeguards like the Clean Water Rule, the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, and the Stream Protection Rule. It has <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/series/your-corner/fight-against-power-plant-rule-gains-steam">brought a lawsuit</a> against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block implementation of the Clean Power Plan. In fact, the Chamber <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber_litigation_report_part_1.pdf">sued</a> the EPA 15 times during a recent three-year period.</p> <p>Most notoriously, the Chamber has routinely attempted to block efforts to combat climate change. In 2009, the Chamber infamously <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/25/nation/na-climate-trial25">called for</a> a “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” to put climate science on trial. It has also funded a now-debunked study on the Paris Climate Agreement that <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/kevin-steinberger/chamber-inflates-costs-ignores-benefits-climate-action">dramatically overstated</a> the potential costs of the Agreement and ignored its benefits. President Trump later cited this sham “study” as <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/u-s-chamber-say-au-revoir-paris-agreement-bonjour-big-oil/" title="">part of his rationale</a> to pull out of the Paris Agreement.</p> <p>BHP’s website has an entire section on the environment, with subsections devoted to “climate change” and “water” among other topics. Its continued support of the Chamber, however, is in effect condoning the Chamber’s constant attacks on the environment.  </p> <p>If BHP is truly committed to engaging on climate and green energy issues, it should take a consistent stance in which organizations it will refuse to do business with. A number of companies have <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/another-company-leaves-u-s-chamber-commerce-organizations-environmental-policies/" title="">already left</a> the Chamber over its environmental policies including its anti-climate advocacy. No company that proclaims to care about the environment, sustainability, public health or the planet should remain a member.</p> <p>This is why we call on the many corporations that fund it to <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/disney-gap-pepsi-know-money-used-fund-trump-agenda/" title="">#DropTheChamber</a>. This Earth Day, please <a href="https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/sign-the-petition-to-corporate-execs-stop-funding-pro-trump-us-chamber-of-commerce?source=Chamber201706_PC" title="">sign the petition</a> to tell companies like Gap, Pepsi, and Disney to make a better decision than BHP and quit the Chamber and leave it’s fossilized thinking behind and put our planet on a better path to the future.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span></span></span></span></em><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title=""><em><span><span>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span></span></span></span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" title=""><em><span><span>Facebook</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span> </span>and<span> </span></span></span></span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em><span><span>Twitter</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span>.</span></span></span></em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) BHP ChamberofCommerce Climate ClimateChange Environment Environmentalism GlobalWarming parisaccord ParisAgreement ParisClimateAgreement Sustainability U.S.ChamberofCommerce USChamber _1758633 Sun, 22 Apr 2018 14:02:08 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/4/17/1757850/-On-Tax-Day-the-U-S-Chamber-Pretends-the-Trump-Tax-Cut-is-Not-Just-for-the-Very-Wealthy <p>This morning, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce held its “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/event/tax-cuts-work" title="">Tax Cuts at Work</a>” event to celebrate the tax legislation that passed in December, which gave a massive windfall to the wealthy and to profitable corporations, as well as rewarding tax dodgers that had <a href="https://www.citizenvox.org/2018/02/26/21740/" title="">stockpiled money overseas.</a> The event description states that attendees gathered to “discuss the benefits of the recently enacted tax reform legislation,” which is code for a lot of self-congratulatory back-patting since the Chamber <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/swamped-tax-report-update_0.pdf">lobbied heavily</a> for its passage. In fact, a recent Public Citizen <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/swamped-tax-report-update_0.pdf">report</a> found that the Chamber hired 115 lobbyists on tax issues in 2017—the most hired by any one organization.</p> <p>This Chamber event is part of a coordinated PR blitz that President Trump, the GOP leadership, and their cronies have been engaged in since the bill’s passage that would have the American public believe tax cuts for corporations actually spur wage growth and job creation. Not only has trickle-down theory been disproven in the past, but the current <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-tax-break-analysis-20180402-story.html">data</a> show that almost all of the real effects of the tax cut involve making the extremely wealthy even wealthier. That’s why people call it the <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TrumpTaxScam&amp;src=typd">Trump Tax Scam</a>.</p> <p>In a recent <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/series/the-case-tax-reform/tax-cuts-work">blog post</a>, the Chamber trumpeted that because of the new tax law, “job creators are sending less of their hard-earned money to Washington,” which of course means there will be less revenue for healthcare, education, and other important government investments like infrastructure.  However, the post also gave the false impression that it is primarily small businesses that are seeing the tax cuts’ benefits rather than giant corporations. The reality is that the tax cut’s benefits for small business owners are complicated and <a href="https://www.fundera.com/blog/trump-tax-plan">confusing</a>, and has different treatment for different types of small businesses, meaning some could <a href="https://www.fundera.com/blog/trump-tax-plan" title="">possibly end up paying more</a>.</p> <p>The newly-launched resource, <a href="https://americansfortaxfairness.org/trumptaxcuttruths/">Trump Tax Cut Truths</a>, makes clear where the money from the tax cuts is actually going. The answer? To giant corporations and the extremely wealthy, mostly. Take a look at some key findings:</p> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl"><img alt="ATF_graphic.png" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/533175/large/ATF_graphic.png?1523997760" title="ATF_graphic.png"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> <p>The Chamber’s public relations materials may be able to cherry-pick anecdotes of a couple of small business owners whose stories suit its narrative of reinvestment, but it’s plain to see that the overwhelming bulk of the tax cut’s benefits are going to shareholders, not workers. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/22/17144870/stock-buybacks-republican-tax-cuts" target="_blank" title="">stock buybacks</a> and higher corporate profits <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/18/for-roughly-half-of-americans-the-stock-markets-record-highs-dont-help-at-all/?utm_term=.ed800cbfd586">mean very little</a> to the average employee. A recent National Bureau of Economic Research <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w24085">report</a> found that the majority of U.S. households own no stock, the richest 1% own 40% of stock, and the richest 10% own 84% of stock.</p> <p>Previously, we <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/22/1700553/-U-S-Chamber-Tax-Reform-Won-t-Help-Working-Americans">wrote</a> about the Chamber’s million dollar <a href="https://nypost.com/2017/09/06/chamber-of-commerce-is-spending-millions-to-target-anti-trump-republicans/">ad campaign</a> and its “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/tax-reform">Tax Reform Now</a>” website, back when the Chamber was lobbying the get the tax cut package passed. Both of those promotion efforts were deeply misleading in exactly the same way as its current messaging around the tax scam: pretending it was about helping working people and small businesses, rather than the corporations and Big Business executives it was created to benefit.</p> <p>This law is having exactly the effect it was designed to have: making Donald Trump and his family, Republicans in Congress, and their billionaire donors richer.  A recent <a href="https://itep.org/wp-content/uploads/TCJA-extension-final.pdf">report</a> from the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy found that the richest fifth of Americans will receive 71% of the benefits of the tax law in 2018, with the largest benefit going to the richest one percent. The U.S. Chamber can try all it wants to hide that fact, but the numbers don’t lie.</p> <p><span><span><span>Instead of letting ourselves fall for the Chamber’s misleading portrayal of what the tax changes have actually done, we should end tax breaks for wealthy CEOs and reject efforts by the GOP to pay for their charade by making deep cuts into Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and education. </span></span><a href="https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stand-with-keith-ellison-repeal-the-trump-republican-tax-scam-for-the-rich-and-corporations?source=PublicCitizen&amp;referrer=group-public-citizen-dc"><span><span>Take action today</span></span></a><span><span> to demand that Congress repeal the #TrumpTaxScam.</span></span></span></p> <p><span><em><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </span></span></span></em><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/"><em><span><span>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span> or follow us on </span></span></span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em><span><span>Facebook</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span> and </span></span></span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em><span><span>Twitter</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span>.</span></span></span></em></span></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce GopTaxScam Lobbying TaxCut TaxDay TaxReform TrumpTax TrumpTaxScam USChamber _1757850 Tue, 17 Apr 2018 20:02:31 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/4/12/1756547/-The-U-S-Chamber-s-Plans-to-Defang-the-CFPB <p>The U.S. Chamber of Commerce really, <strong><u>really</u></strong> does not like the idea of an independent and effective Consumer Financial Protection bureau (CFPB).</p> <p>That’s the key takeaway from its recently-released <a href="https://www.centerforcapitalmarkets.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/CCMC_CFPB-Agenda.pdf">CFPB “reform” agenda</a>. The agenda’s preamble claims that the Chamber’s proposed restructuring is “an effort to support the agency’s mission to protect consumers,” but a look into their proposals shows that this is mere smoke and mirrors. The Chamber’s true goal is to defang the CFPB and roll back consumer protections.</p> <p>The Chamber’s recommendations would drastically change the way the bureau does its work—mainly by stripping the agency of its independent leadership and funding. And, other proposed changes would threaten the public’s access to information, weaken the bureau’s system for citizens to make complaints about specific companies, and would put less emphasis on enforcement.</p> <p>Currently, the CFPB’s funding is handled by the Federal Reserve. That was deliberate in design; the CFPB must be independent from Congress in order to ensure that it represents consumers first and can’t be guided toward partisan ends. The Chamber’s proposal would put Congress in charge of the CFPB’s purse strings, allowing the congressional majority to control the bureau’s funding in a way that will effectively keep it from issuing safeguards to protect consumers.</p> <p>The Chamber’s agenda also recommends changing the structure of the CFPB to be run by a bipartisan commission, so that, <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/fec-deadlock-statement-and-chart-january-2013.pdf">like other commissions</a>, partisan fighting could stop the bureau from implementing new protections. The current structure has worked well and has been upheld by the courts—a federal appeals court <a href="https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/sites/nationallawjournal/2018/01/31/d-c-circuit-wont-upend-cfpbs-single-director-power-structure/?slreturn=20180309171751">ruled</a> in January that the single-director structure of the bureau is constitutional and that the director cannot be fired by the president without cause. As with bringing the bureau’s funding under congressional control, this measure is designed to allow the Chamber’s friends in the GOP to prevent the bureau from exercising meaningful regulation of financial institutions involved in predatory or abusive practices.</p> <p>Critically, the Chamber’s stance on the CFPB very closely mirrors that of the Trump administration. Recently, the CFPB released its semi-annual <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-issues-semi-annual-report/">report</a>, the first under Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, a Trump loyalist and House Freedom Caucus co-founder who has previously called the bureau a “sad, sick joke.” As Public Citizen <a href="https://www.citizenvox.org/2018/04/04/mulvaney-releases-plan-to-gut-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/">has documented</a>, Mulvaney’s report is essentially a roadmap for the dismantling of the CFPB that Mulvaney has desired for a long time. The CFPB’s report includes Mulvaney’s four recommendations for Congress to gut the bureau and render it ineffective. Like the Chamber’s recommendations, Mulvaney’s proposal includes provisions to make the CFPB’s budget subject to appropriations from Congress. As Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen’s vice president of legislative affairs, <a href="https://www.citizen.org/media/press-releases/mulvaney%E2%80%99s-proposals-are-knife-heart-cfpb">put it</a>, Mulvaney’s proposals are a “knife in the heart” of the CFPB.</p> <p>Throughout its agenda, the Chamber hides its intentions behind PR-friendly buzzwords like “access,” “choice,” and “reform.” But scrutiny of the Chamber’s proposals makes it clear that what they really want is to let corporations escape oversight and accountability, and to let an overly partisan and corporate captured Congress keep the CFPB from making real advancements for consumers.</p> <p>The value of the <span>CFPB to American consumers cannot be overstated. As of early 2017, the bureau </span><a href="https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201701_cfpb_CFPB-By-the-Numbers-Factsheet.pdf"><span><span>had secured nearly $12 billion in relief for nearly 30 million consumers</span></span></a><span>. It had also handled over 1 million complaints, and fielded questions from the 13 million unique visitors to its </span><a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/" title=""><span><span>Ask CFPB tool</span></span></a><span>. </span></p> <p><span>But the bureau’s independence from Congress and partisan politics is essential to its effectiveness. Only free from Congress’ control can the CFPB put the needs of the American people ahead of interference from an uncooperative majority focused on putting the needs of their corporate donors first.</span></p> <p><span>Rather than allow the CFPB to continue its essential work to protect consumers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would instead like for its Big Bank friends have what they’ve been clamoring for: an end to the bureau’s independence and control over its actions. After all, when you represent predatory Wall Street banks, you can’t just let some watchdog agency stop you from lining your own pockets, no matter how much harm you do to consumers.</span></p> <p><span>But, we will continue to work to stop the Chamber and the Trump administration from getting their way. We’ll defend the CFPB against restructuring that would prevent it from doing its job: to ensure people, not bank profits, are protected. <a href="https://action.citizen.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=13781" title="">Take action</a> today to stand with us.</span></p> <p></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span><span><span>U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" target="_blank" title="">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span><span><span><span><span><span> or follow us on<span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" title=""><em><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Facebook</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></a><span><span><span> </span><em><span><span><span><span>and<span> </span></span></span></span></span></em></span></span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Twitter</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span><span><span>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) CFPB ChamberofCommerce Consumerprotection DefendCFPB Mulvaney USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1756547 Thu, 12 Apr 2018 18:22:27 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/4/5/1754406/-Analysis-of-U-S-Chamber-Staff-Reveals-a-Revolving-Door-with-the-GOP <p><span><span>Previously, we have </span></span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/14/1610928/-Exposing-the-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-GOP-Dark-Money-Machine" title=""><span><span>explored</span></span></a><span><span> the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s extremely partisan, secretive approach to election spending. Under CEO Tom Donohue, in the 2016 elections, the Chamber spent nearly $30 million, 100 percent of which went to benefit Republican candidates. Among groups that do not disclose their donors, the Chamber was the second largest spender in the 2016 elections (after the National Rifle Association). Along with its spending habits, the Chamber’s staffing also tells a story of how wildly partisan the organization is. This is of course very different than the wide-ranging perspectives of the Main Street businesses the Chamber purports to represent, which represent every political stripe and ideological bent in the nation.</span></span></p> <p><span><span>In a new <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber-partisanship-report.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>, Public Citizen analyzed a database of 1</span></span><span><span>57 current and former Chamber employees who previously held jobs that could be characterized as partisan in nature, such as working for an elected official or an outside group with a strong ideological bent. Of these, more than 90 percent worked for Republican or conservative entities, and fewer than 10 percent for Democratic or liberal entities. These Chamber employees worked for 72 GOP members of the U.S. House and 47 GOP U.S. senators.</span></span></p> <p><span><span>We tallied 73 different right-leaning entities that have fed employees to the Chamber, including Republican White Houses and cabinet secretaries, the Republican National Committee, right-leaning political action committees, conservative media, and Republican members of Congress. </span></span></p> <p><span><span>Republican or conservative entities for which U.S. Chamber employees have worked include such familiar names as Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity and other Koch brothers groups, and the NRA, as seen in this map:</span></span></p> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="right_wing_entity_map.png" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/527894/large/right_wing_entity_map.png?1522863393" title="right_wing_entity_map.png"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> <p><span><span>For comparison’s sake, here is the much less busy map of Democratic or liberal entities for which U.S. Chamber employees have worked:</span></span></p> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="left_wing_entity_map.png" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/527893/large/left_wing_entity_map.png?1522863390" title="left_wing_entity_map.png"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> <p><span><span>Given this lopsided, tangled web of associations with conservative actors, it is safe to conclude that the Chamber is not an apolitical organization looking out for your local mom-and-pop stores, as it masquerades. Instead, what the Chamber advocates is usually the preferred policies of the Republican Party and those in its sphere. And indeed, the Chamber’s activity has lined up with the GOP’s legislative agenda with uncanny frequency. </span></span></p> <p><span><span>The Chamber has taken conservative positions on issues such as </span></span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/7/1669709/-U-S-Chamber-Say-Au-Revoir-to-the-Paris-Agreement-and-Bonjour-to-Big-Oil"><span><span>climate change</span></span></a><span><span> and </span></span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/us/obama-unveils-plan-to-sharply-limit-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html"><span><span>environmental regulations</span></span></a><span><span>, </span></span><a href="https://www.uschamber.com/series/above-the-fold/us-chamber-supports-american-health-care-act"><span><span>repealing the Affordable Care Act</span></span></a><span><span>, </span></span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/22/1700553/-U-S-Chamber-Tax-Reform-Won-t-Help-Working-Americans"><span><span>tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations</span></span></a><span><span>, and </span></span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/4/4/1650031/-The-Chamber-s-War-on-Women"><span><span>opposing workplace equality for women</span></span></a><span><span>. In addition, the Chamber often throws around its weight in the legal system, </span></span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber_litigation_report_part_1.pdf"><span><span>frequently using litigation</span></span></a><span><span> against those who oppose the aforementioned policies. </span></span></p> <p><span><span>At U.S. Chamber Watch, we work to draw attention to the fact that the U.S. Chamber is behaving in a partisan manner and focused on dismantling the public protections that small businesses (and regular Americans) need. </span></span></p> <p><span><span>One important way to do this is to ensure that the </span></span><a href="https://www.uschamber.com/membership-0"><span><span>many companies</span></span></a><span><span> that fund the Chamber understand what they stand for. Many have consumer-facing brands, and need to be conscious of their PR and public associations. These brand-sensitive companies would never want anyone to think of them as supporting the Koch brothers or undercutting climate change, worker health, and financial safety policies.</span></span></p> <p><span><span>We aren’t naïve, and we don’t expect these companies to make decisions solely out of the goodness of their hearts. But what they should do is recognize the partisanship of the Chamber and the danger it could pose to their bottom lines. They know that their ideologically diverse customer bases may abandon their brands if their ties to such a partisan organization are discovered. These companies </span></span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/10/13/1706702/-Almost-200-000-People-ask-Gap-to-Stop-Funding-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce"><span><span>should stop funding</span></span></a><span><span> the Chamber.</span></span></p> <p><span><span>The revolving door of staffers from the GOP to the Chamber of Commerce is yet more evidence that it is not actually a trade group benignly representing business interests as it claims to be, but rather a partisan organization pushing for a conservative agenda. Y</span></span>ou can read our full report, titled “The Chamber of Partisanship: An Investigation into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Dense Web of Political Connections” <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber-partisanship-report.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p><em><span><span><span><span><span><span>U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on <a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org" target="_blank">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span><span><span><span><span><span> or follow us on </span></span></span></span></span></span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Facebook</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></a><span><span> <em><span><span><span><span>and </span></span></span></span></em></span></span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Twitter</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span><span><span>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce ClimateChange GOP KochBrothers NRA Tax Taxes TaxReform USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1754406 Thu, 05 Apr 2018 14:00:37 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/3/21/1750999/-Trump-and-the-U-S-Chamber-Agree-the-Future-of-Infrastructure-is-Profits-Not-People <p><em>By Claire Kaplan, Advocacy Intern </em></p> <p>If you drive on highways (or walk and bike underneath their overpasses) you already know that maintaining our roads is critically important. But infrastructure means more than roads, highways and bridges. It means schools, hospitals, water and even the internet. Infrastructure is one of the most essential services a government can provide for its people, and failure can mean <a href="mailto:http://www.newsweek.com/florida-bridge-collapse-cause-why-fiu-pedestrian-walkway-851959">catastrophe</a>. This year, the Trump administration and its ally the <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/series/above-the-fold/here-s-how-the-us-chamber-would-rebuild-and-modernize-america-s-infrastructure">Chamber of Commerce</a> have infrastructure reform at the top of their agendas, and both the White House and Chamber have released plans on the topic in the recent past.  And just like we saw last year with healthcare and taxes, “reform” is code for big-business giveaways that leave American communities, especially low-income communities, out in the cold. Here are three key proposals from the Trump and Chamber plans:</p> <p><strong>Deregulation and Steamrolling Public Protections</strong></p> <p>The most predictable proposal present in both the Chamber’s plan and that of the Trump administration is deregulation (they call it “<a href="https://cms.dot.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/briefing-room/304461/highlightsofinfrastructureplan.pdf">eliminating regulatory barriers</a>”). Both plans argue that deregulation will cut costs without sacrificing quality. There are two problems with this argument. One, unsurprisingly, is that deregulation often compromises both quality and safety. The second problem with deregulation of infrastructure projects is  that we would give up the benefits of safeguards while not at all likely to save any of the promised money, either.</p> <p>In the case of the Trump plan, the most significant <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/373414-trump-aims-to-speed-environmental-reviews-in-infrastructure-plan">deregulatory risk</a> is to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which protects species and habitats but also people and communities from polluting projects.  And, the Chamber’s infrastructure plan specifically <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/drinking-water-could-get-dirtier-trump-infrastructure-plan-2018-2">threatens drinking water safety</a> by proposing to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA’s) ability to veto building permits for projects that negatively impact US waterways, which would increase the risk of water contamination from new highways, dams and pipelines. Its provisions for private leasing of federal lands could also allow pipelines to be built <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2018/02/16/the-energy-202-trump-s-infrastructure-plan-would-make-it-harder-to-challenge-pipelines/5a860e5b30fb047655a0679c/?utm_term=.3c1c828c0c74">through national parks</a>. Opposing regulation is par for the course for the Chamber of Commerce, which in the past has spoken against the <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/chambers-never-ending-war-workers/">Volks Rule</a> (which strengthens employer obligations to maintain records of workplace injuries and illnesses) as well as other worker-safety regulations like one that protects workers from exposure to high levels of <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-expresses-concern-dol-s-silica-rule">crystalline silica dust</a> on the job. The Chamber even opposes compliance with the <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/endangered-species-act">Endangered Species Act</a>.</p> <p>Deregulation will not save money on infrastructure projects  because repairing and rebuilding shoddy construction often costs more than simply building it right the first time (sometimes a lot more). Consider a 1960’s construction project in Florida to help control flooding from the Kissimmee River. The original project did not serve its intended purpose, instead becoming stagnant and ultimately polluting the river, killing almost all plants and wildlife in the area. Whereas it cost $194 million in today’s dollars to build it, cleaning up the mess will cost at least <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2017/05/03/430668/build-first-ask-questions-later-weakening-environmental-review-will-hurt-communities-natural-habitats/">$1 billion</a>. That wouldn't happen today with our current regulatory system for infrastructure projects, that requires robust environmental review.</p> <p>Not only would steamrolling environmental review rules do unacceptable damage to our environment, these disasters become problems for taxpayers to deal with. Without regulation, communities would be left like those of the Kissimmee River project-- faced with a poorly-done project with benefits that never materialize, now consuming more than five times its initial cost simply to reverse the damage it has done. Truly, deregulation would lead to the worst of both worlds.</p> <p><strong>The Threat of Public-Private Partnerships</strong></p> <p>Another commonality between the Trump and Chamber plans is a focus on private investment and public-private partnerships. The Trump plan follows the Chamber’s lead by expanding the use of Private Activity Bonds (a key financing tool for public-private partnerships, or “P3s”), allowing privatization of federal infrastructure, and reducing or eliminating constraints to P3s in transit, transportation, provision of water, and even the <a href="mailto:https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/fact-sheet-how-trumps-infrastructure-plan-incentivizes-privatization/">Veterans Affairs</a> department. The Chamber and the Trump administration claim that these P3s will lead to high-quality services and projects that cost less and give the public more choice, but these claims are erroneous.</p> <p>First, P3s are not cheaper since private contracts are notorious for their hidden costs. Some of them are to the local government – like when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels had to pay a private company $447,000 of taxpayer money to offset “<a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2012/06/19/indiana-highway-building-ramps-up-as-daniels-term-winds-down">losses</a>” from when the governor waived tolls for motorists escaping a massive flood. Some of them are to the public, like when a Chicago consortium operating the city’s parking meters required the city to raise rates in parts of the city by as much as <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2016/07/27/141873/the-hazards-of-noncompete-clauses-in-public-private-partnership-deals/">800%</a> over four years. Private companies typically charge <a href="http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/sites/default/files/report_state_of_public_water.pdf">59% more</a> than public entities to provide utilities like water (in Coatesville, PA the increase was <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/what-your-city-can-learn-from-the-cost-of-water-in-coatesville-pa/">282%</a> between 2001 and 2015). When a private company began charging tolls on the MLK Freeway in Virginia for the first time in decades, the governor had to step in and renegotiate the deal after some residents received bills totaling <a href="https://pilotonline.com/news/government/virginia/virginia-tightens-lid-on-tunnel-toll-bills-after-pilot-highlights/article_978fab8e-1458-5ba4-8020-7c19ee7ce8c7.html">more than $10,000</a>. Private companies expect revenue, sometimes an unrealistic amount, and if they don’t get it, they’ll take steps to recover the difference.</p> <p>The Chamber claims that cities will be able to choose among competing bids, so they can just avoid these bad deals. Well, that may be true in rich areas, but low-income communities won’t be able to offer such lucrative contracts. Some public projects just aren’t profitable on their own. To expect private companies to take a loss in order to help low-income communities is naive. Even if these projects are taken on, expect user fees to be so high that many residents will no longer be able to afford the prices of essential services like water to their homes or the tolls on the roads to their jobs.</p> <p>This isn’t always true, of course – there are plenty of P3s that do provide services at a discounted cost. Unfortunately, most savings claimed by private contractors are due to huge layoffs and underpayment of wages (specifically, from finding ways to avoid having to pay prevailing wage requirements). That’s what United Water did when they signed a deal to operate Atlanta’s water system in 1999, then proceeded to <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/atlantafiasco.pdf">fire more than half the system’s employees</a> and cut training for the rest. In 2003, the city decided they’d had enough of constant service problems, water-main breaks and even occasional <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/10/us/as-cities-move-to-privatize-water-atlanta-steps-back.html">boil-only alerts</a>. They dissolved the partnership.</p> <p>P3s are supposed to give the public more say, at least – but even this claim is questionable. If the city of Chicago wants to put more bike lanes on its road, they are restricted from making these improvements. Why? Because a private company runs their parking meters, and more people bicycling means fewer paying tolls. The city also has to reimburse the company if they want to close a street (say, for a parade or street fair). The contract went through city council in four days, with no hearings or opportunities for public input. Now, regretful city officials are <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/city-state-governments-privatization-contracting-backlash/361016/">locked in</a> to the deal. Public-private partnership contracts are also known to contain “non-compete” clauses to protect their profits. That company in Norfolk, VA charging drivers $10,000 in tolls put a clause in their contract limiting the city’s ability to erect or improve “<a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2016/07/27/141873/the-hazards-of-noncompete-clauses-in-public-private-partnership-deals/">alternative facilities</a>” for drivers who can’t afford such hefty fees. Who exactly has “more say” in these deals? Not the city’s residents.</p> <p>The bottom line is, the most important thing for a private company isn’t providing high-quality service. It’s not improving the community. It’s not even the well-being of their workers. It’s profit. If other considerations – like safety, pollution, or quality – conflict with profit, expect private corporations to put profit first.</p> <p><strong>Cutting federal funding</strong></p> <p>Not only does the Trump administration agree with the Chamber’s mistaken belief that safeguarding public protections isn’t necessary, and that private investment is preferable to public, but they have an additional shared priority for infrastructure reform: they don’t want the federal government to pay for it. The administration’s plan calls for $200 billion in federal investment, but it also calls for $280 billion in cuts to services. That’s a <a href="https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/fact-sheet-how-trumps-infrastructure-plan-incentivizes-privatization/" title="">$1.40 loss for every new $1 available</a>, and will lead to massive job losses. State and local governments, used to shouldering 20% of the costs of new infrastructure projects, will now be asked to take on <a href="https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/02/lets-stop-calling-it-a-15-trillion-infrastructure-plan/553145/">80%</a>. Worse, under the Incentives Program, even the meager federal funds still available will be preferentially allocated to projects that show strong revenue or revenue potential (i.e. the projects where they are least needed). Some cities will be able to raise the money by increasing state and local taxes, but others will be forced into public-private partnerships to try to make up the difference. Communities too poor to raise revenue through taxation or attract profit-motivated investors face the prospect of simply being unable to afford to fix their broken infrastructure at all. Propaganda from the Trump administration calls this a “$1.5 trillion plan” for infrastructure investment. Don’t be fooled. Most of this money is coming from two places: hypothetical private investors, and taxpayers.</p> <p>Both the Chamber and the Trump infrastructure plans laud running the government “like a business.” That should alarm you because, to a business, you are nothing more than a revenue-generating customer. But Americans are not the government’s customers. We are its owners. Customers just pay and take what’s available, but owners can demand something better. Stand with Public Citizen and organizations around the country to say: our schools, highways, hospitals, and water are not for sale to the highest bidder. We demand a government that puts people over profits when it comes to infrastructure investments.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em>Cross-posted on <a href="http://chamberofcommercewatch.org" target="_blank">U.S. Chamber Watch</a> and <a href="http://citizenvox.org" target="_blank">Citizen Vox</a>.</em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce EPA Infrastructure NEPA P3 trump _1750999 Wed, 21 Mar 2018 23:05:20 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/1/8/1730808/-The-Chamber-Gets-What-It-Wants-and-Layoffs-Still-Ensue <p>The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sided against <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/technology/364528-poll-83-percent-of-voters-support-keeping-fccs-net-neutrality-rules">83% of the American public</a> by <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/7/26/1684222/-On-Net-Neutrality-the-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-again-sides-with-Big-Business-over-Consumers" title="">heavily pushing to repeal the rules that ensured net neutrality</a>. Likewise, polling on the Republican tax bill in the final days before passage showed it <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/19/politics/cnn-poll-tax-bill-opposition-grows/index.html">22 points underwater with the public</a>, meanwhile  a <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/swamped-tax-lobbying-report.pdf">Public Citizen report</a> found that the Chamber had <a href="http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/362796-analysis-more-than-6000-lobbyists-have-worked-on">100 lobbyists</a> working in support of the bill.</p> <p>The Trump Administration, however, overlooked the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Action_to_Save_Net_Neutrality">largest online protest in history</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/12/18/protesters-storm-congress-to-fight-tax-bill-as-cameras-point-elsewhere/?utm_term=.e304e0baa678">daily tax protester arrests</a> and gave the Chamber both items on its wish list. The theory was that these massive handouts to big corporations would super-charge growth for the middle class. So let’s take a look at what’s happening with two <a href="https://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Chamber_of_Secrets_members_report.pdf" title="">likely Chamber members</a> that benefited from both of these decisions.</p> <p>In December, Comcast <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/20/tax-reform-reaction-att-is-giving-bonuses-to-200000-employees.html">got big headlines</a> for announcing a one-time bonus for its employees and over $50 billion in infrastructure investment over five years. All, however, was not as it appeared.</p> <p>It turned out that Comcast, the <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/news/350979/comcast-is-americas-most-hated-company" title="">most hated company in America</a>, had <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/comcast-fired-500-despite-claiming-tax-cut-would-create-thousands-of-jobs/" title="">secretly laid-off 500 employees</a> days before Christmas. One former employee worker stated that they had to sign a “nondisclosure agreement as part of a severance package”, even though he only worked in sales.  Just this week they notified state officials that <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2018/01/03/comcast-coca-cola-kick-off-2018-with-atlanta.html">planned to lay-off 405 more employees</a> outside Atlanta. (They did find room in their budget to be the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/7/16709586/republican-tax-bills-lobbying" title="">most active corporate lobbyist</a> on taxes in 2017.)</p> <p>As for the capital expenditures, an <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/comcasts-network-investments-soared-with-net-neutrality-rules-in-place/">Ars Technica analysis</a> found that unless Comcast goes well above the promised $50 billion, it would actually represent a smaller annual increase in Comcast’s infrastructure spending than in recent years.</p> <p>AT&amp;T is <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/about/board-directors" title="">another presumed Chamber member</a> that benefited from both actions and promised to greatly invest in its business. Like Comcast, it too made a splashy announcement about a Christmas bonus for its workers and tried to bury <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/money/2018/01/02/t-touting-bonuses-and-investment-fueled/992690001/" title="">news that they were laying off workers</a> (in AT&amp;T’s case thousands of them.) The Communications Workers of America have <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/att-sued-over-layoffs-after-promising-more-investment-because-of-tax-cut/">filed a lawsuit over the layoffs</a>.</p> <p>Last spring, AT&amp;T’s CEO was <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/05/04/att-ceo-tax-cuts-means-more-jobs-for-hard-hat-workers.html" title="">very clear</a> what massive tax cuts for his corporation would mean: every billion dollars in savings would mean an additional 7,000 good paying jobs at AT&amp;T. Yet, an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/opinion/corporate-tax-cuts-jobs.html" title="">August op-ed in the<em> New York Times</em></a> by the Institute for Policy Studies pointed out that “AT&amp;T enjoyed an effective tax rate of just 8 perfect between 2008 and 2015, despite recording a profit” and during that time reduced its workforce by nearly 80,000 people. It did however find a spare $34 billion for stock buybacks during that time, which serve little purpose outside of increasing value to investors.</p> <p>The Chamber would have us believe that if we just accommodate the every whim of big business, this time things will be different and the public will be the real winners. History tells a different story and we can see it playing out again right now with Comcast and AT&amp;T’s workforce reductions.</p> <p><span><em><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </span></span></span></em><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title=""><em><span><span>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span> or follow us on </span></span></span></em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em><span><span>Facebook</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span> and </span></span></span></em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em><span><span>Twitter</span></span></em></a><em><span><span><span>.</span></span></span></em></span></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce NetNeutrality Taxes _1730808 Mon, 08 Jan 2018 18:08:25 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/10/26/1710092/-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-All-Tricks-No-Treats <p><span><span>October 31^st, the one day a year that children and adults alike don costumes and take to the streets for free candy. For the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, however, Halloween seems to be celebrated daily. Whether it’s dressing up as the voice for small business, or “ghost” writing some scary legislation, the Chamber can always be counted on to masquerade as something it’s not. If you’ve followed our series up until this point, you’re well educated in just how frightening the Chamber of Commerce can be. On the off chance you <em>haven’t</em> followed our series and we’re just now meeting you, allow us to give you a Halloween crash course on the very scariest components of the Chamber.  </span></span></p> <p><span><span>There are few things more frightening than losing access to high-quality affordable health care. Got a “boo” boo? Tough luck, says the Chamber!  Since the beginning of the debate around passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Chamber has worked to undermine efforts to expand access to healthcare for tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans.</span> <span>In just 15 months between 2009 and 2010, the Chamber spent more than </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/06/25/busted-health-insurers-secretly-spent-huge-to-defeat-health-care-reform-while-pretending-to-support-obamacare/#5d611fe4248a">$102 million dollars</a><span>, funneled to it by the big health insurers, on opposing the ACA. In 2017, we watched as the Chamber </span><a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/us-chamber-supports-american-health-care-act">lobbied</a><span> Congress to pass the American Health Care Act (AHCA) which would have repealed the ACA, and it  spent </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/21/1673876/-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-Spent-Over-16-Million-Supporting-Authors-of-Senate-Healthcare-Bill">more than $16 million</a><span> between 2012 and 2016 supporting the campaigns of ten of the 13 senators authoring the bill. </span></span></p> <p><span><span>Just as scary as losing health insurance? Resurrecting a deregulated state from the grave. The Chamber has spent the past several months pushing Trump and the GOP congress to revoke a slew of Obama-era rules protecting consumers, workers, and the environment, including pushing to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act, which helps to limit Wall Street’s penchant for casino capitalism. The Chamber has </span><a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/us-chamber-letter-the-financial-choice-act-2017">lobbied </a><span>fiercely for passage of the </span><a href="http://qz.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?key=-1&amp;url_num=7&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.citizen.org%2Fmedia%2Fpress-releases%2Fwrong-choice-house-should-oppose-wall-street-deregulation-bill">Financial CHOICE Act</a><span>, a sweeping Wall Street deregulation bill that would undo much of Dodd-Frank. Among other things, the CHOICE Act would repeal the </span><a href="https://www.thebalance.com/volcker-rule-summary-3305905">Volcker Rule</a><span>, a piece of legislation that ensures that banks refrain from engaging in speculative proprietary trading with investors’ money, thereby reducing the risk of another financial crisis. The Chamber’s latest crusade has been stripping defrauded consumers and small businesses from their right to band together to sue corporations, such as Wells Fargo and Equifax. The Chamber </span><a href="https://alliedprogress.org/research/caffeinated-absurdity-fact-checking-chambers-new-anti-cfpb-ad/">lobbied</a><span> for the repeal of the CFPB’s forced arbitration rule, and unfortunately, earlier this week the Chamber and its Wall Street allies were </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/25/559950275/senate-kills-rule-on-class-action-suits-against-financial-companies">successful</a><span> in killing this important consumer protection rule. </span></span></p> <p><span><span>Bobbing for apples this year? Enjoy them (that is, apples and clean water) while you can. When it comes to the environment, the Chamber has proven time and time again that it has little regard for planet Earth. The Chamber has been a </span><a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/two-big-problems-president-obama-s-paris-climate-efforts" title="">longtime critic</a><span> of the Paris climate agreement. It even </span><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15727398/donald-trump-paris-climate-change-agreement-us-pulls-out-million-jobs">paid</a><span> for the </span><a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/kevin-steinberger/chamber-inflates-costs-ignores-benefits-climate-action">debunked</a><span> “study” Trump used to justify withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. The Chamber has been a </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/us/obama-unveils-plan-to-sharply-limit-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html">leading opponent</a><span> of other actions to mitigate climate change, such as </span>sui<span>ng to block Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which would reduce carbon emissions at power plants. But the Chamber’s anti-environmental litigation isn’t just limited to attempting to block the Clean Power Plan. Between 2013 and 2016, the Chamber opposed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in </span><a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/Chamber%20litigation%20report%20part%201.pdf">court 26 times</a><span>. Given its decades-long history of doing the dirty work on behalf of the fossil fuel and other polluting industries, it comes as no surprise that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is also pushing hard for repeal of the clean water rule, also known as the </span><a href="https://www.epa.gov/wotus-rule">Waters of the United States</a><span> (WOTUS) rule, which increases protections for the nation’s waterways. </span></span></p> <p><span><span>Hoping to put on your finest </span><a href="https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Mad-Men-Halloween-Costume-Ideas-20155928">Mad Men attire</a><span> for Halloween 2k17? Don’t bother! Just head on over to the Chamber where you can see antiquated workplace policies stacked against women in action! The Chamber has been hard at work keeping women from achieving equity in the workplace since the 1960s, opposing workplace policies for women relating to equal pay, pregnancy, and medical leave. In 1977 the Chamber </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1977/04/07/archives/pregnancy-benefit-bill-is-disputed-at-hearing.html?_r=0">lobbied against</a><span> amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to cover women from discrimination due to pregnancy. Just a year later, in 1978, the Chamber used the argument that pregnancy is a “</span><a href="http://old.seiu.org/2009/06/top-10-historical-us-chamber-of-commerce-quotes-against-healthcare.php">voluntary</a><span>” condition in its opposition to the Pregnancy Discrimination Act</span><span><span><span>. Unfortunately, that’s not all. They’ve also lobbied against the </span></span></span>Family and Medical Leave Act saying it would set a “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/03/us/washington-talk-momentum-and-family-leave.html?scp=1&amp;sq=%2522u.s.%20chamber%2522%20%2522medical%20leave%2522&amp;st=cse">dangerous precedent</a> of federally mandated employee benefits,” as well as President Clinton’s push for <a href="http://thepennsylvaniaprogressive.com/2009/07/if-the-u-s-chamber-had-their-way-pennsylvanians-would-suffer/">equal pay in 1998</a>, <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/brochure-equal_pay_and_ledbetter_act.cfm">the Lilly Ledbetter Act</a>, and in 2009, the Chamber went so far as to <a href="http://rawstory.com/2009/11/moveon-furious-chamber-commerce-lobbying-block-rape-victims-lawsuits/" target="_blank">lobby against legislation</a> that would allow rape victims to bring lawsuits against their employers. In both 2014 and 2015, the Chamber <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/paycheck-fairness-act-would-increase-lawsuits-erode-employer-defenses-says-us-chamber" title="">opposed to the Paycheck Fairness Act</a>, legislation that would address the pay gap by requiring companies to justify pay discrepancies based on legitimate factors such as education, training, and experience. </span></p> <p>If taking away healthcare, destroying public protections, and restricting women’s’ rights aren’t enough to spook you, we’re not sure what will! While we can’t say when the Chamber’s Little Shop of Horrors will finally come to an end, we can say we’ll work to expose them in the meantime.</p> <p>Happy Halloween from Chamber Watch!</p> <p><em>If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </em><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title=""><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em> or follow us on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em>Facebook</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce GOP Halloween trump USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1710092 Thu, 26 Oct 2017 17:47:58 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/10/13/1706702/-Almost-200-000-People-ask-Gap-to-Stop-Funding-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce <p>Last week, activists descended on Gap’s headquarters in downtown San Francisco. Their ask? That Gap, the clothing manufacturing and retail giant, cease funding the anti-climate, anti-woman U.S. Chamber of Commerce.</p> <p>The protest was hosted by a diverse group of organizations, including 350 Bay Area, the Center for Biological Diversity, Corporate Accountability International, CREDO, Daily Kos, Earthworks, Greenpeace, MoveOn Contra Costa, Public Citizen, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club and the Sunflower Alliance. <span>Gayle McLaughlin, Richmond, CA, progressive City Council member and former mayor, also urged the GAP to stop funding the Chamber.</span></p> <p>San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin was the first to speak. He urged Gap to consider its hometown of San Francisco’s commitment to the environment, by cutting off its funding to the Chamber, noting that several large Bay Area companies have already dropped out of the trade association because of a disconnect between their values and that of the Chamber. Peskin remarked to the protest participants, “Gap has San Francisco values, and if you share those values, you cannot be a member of the United States Chamber of Commerce.”</p> <p>Brandy Doyle of CREDO Action added, “Funding the Chamber means supporting [its] agenda, and Gap can’t claim to support climate action or claim to support reducing emissions when they’re funding the largest lobbying organization in the U.S that’s using that money to spread climate change denial and push us out of the Paris Agreement….if you’re with us and you’re with the planet, you can’t give money to a right-wing extremist group like the Chamber.”</p> <p>And, when calling out the *gap* between Gap supporting equal pay for women while funding the Chamber, Rico Sisney of Green Peace Bay Area chapter said, “[The Chamber] has been fighting the advancement of women since the 70s, they opposed an amendment to the Civil Rights Act that would ban discrimination against pregnant women, they also opposed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act because they say that pregnancy is a voluntary act.”</p> <figure class="image-captioned align-right"><img alt="gap_dk_1.jpeg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/460314/large/gap_dk_1.jpeg?1507917540" title="gap_dk_1.jpeg"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> <p>As we’ve<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/4/24/1655787/-Do-Disney-Gap-and-Pepsi-Know-that-Their-Money-is-Being-Used-to-Fund-the-Trump-Agenda"> mentioned before</a>, the protest comes on the heels of Art Peck receiving a <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/gap_coalition_sign_on_letter.pdf">letter</a> from more than 50 groups in more than a dozen countries asking Gap to stop funding a trade <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/gap_coalition_sign_on_letter.pdf">association</a> that works against the environmental and gender-equality policies Gap claims to support.</p> <p>The Chamber, the nation’s largest lobbying group, has a <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/4/4/1650031/-The-Chamber-s-War-on-Women">long and ongoing opposition</a> to legislation to reduce work place discrimination against women. It also has been at the forefront of the opposition to both the Clean Power Plan and the <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/7/1669709/-U-S-Chamber-Say-Au-Revoir-to-the-Paris-Agreement-and-Bonjour-to-Big-Oil">Paris Agreement</a>. Over the past two decades, the Chamber has spent almost $1.4 billion in lobbying, often against environmental laws and regulations; it has also spent more than $150 million in dark money on congressional races, almost exclusively in support of anti-climate candidates.</p> <p>In addition to the coalition letter to Peck, almost 200,000 consumers signed petitions organized by <a href="https://act.credoaction.com/sign/quit_chamber">CREDO Action</a>, Corporate Accountability International, Daily Kos, <a href="https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/sign-the-petition-to-corporate-execs-stop-funding-pro-trump-us-chamber-of-commerce?source=Chamber201706_PC">Public Citizen</a> and Sierra Club asking Gap to stop funding the Chamber and its reactionary agenda. The massive public support for these petitions should signal to Gap that its funding of the Chamber is not in line with its customers’ values. At the conclusion of the protest, we were unsurprisingly denied access to Mr. Peck for petition delivery so in his stead we hand-delivered the signatures to aGap employee who came outside to accept them.</p> <p>In the wake of this protest, Chamber Watch and our allies will continue to ramp up the pressure on Gap to do the right thing and decide that honoring San Francisco values, require it to stop funding the anti-climate, anti-woman U.S. Chamber of Commerce.</p> <p>Want to see the protest? Check out our Facebook Live <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/publiccitizen/videos/?ref=page_internal">here</a>.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on </em><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/"><em>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</em></a><em> or follow us on </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em>Facebook</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ARTPECK ChamberofCommerce Gap GapInc GOP ParisAgreement trump USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1706702 Fri, 13 Oct 2017 18:01:42 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/9/29/1702783/-Who-s-Behind-Trump-s-Deregulatory-Agenda <p>On Monday, President Donald Trump is expected to deliver a major address on his administration’s push for regulatory “reform”. While the Republican Party may have more <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-alabama-anti-establishment-wing-declares-all-out-war-in-2018/2017/09/26/96d1f54a-a2d0-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html?utm_term=.27bd0ca7c97a" title="">in-fighting</a> than a forty minute episode of Real Housewives, one thing they can almost all agree on is deregulation. The main driver of this deregulatory agenda is none other than that big business behemoth, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber has already had a lot of success pushing Trump and the GOP congress to revoke a <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/arbitration-rule/">slew</a> of Obama-era rules protecting consumers, workers, and the environment. As Trump now prepares for a new round of deregulatory fervor, we preview the Chamber’s <a href="http://www.centerforcapitalmarkets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/U.S.-Chamber-comments-on-permitting-and-domestic-manufacturing.pdf?x48633" title="">priorities</a>, which we fully expect him to embrace on Monday.</p> <p>At the top of the Chamber’s deregulatory wish list, and likely to be mentioned by Trump, is repealing the Dodd-Frank Act, which helps to limit Wall Street’s penchant for casino capitalism. Concretely, this means once again pushing for the adoption of the <a href="http://qz.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?key=-1&amp;url_num=7&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.citizen.org%2Fmedia%2Fpress-releases%2Fwrong-choice-house-should-oppose-wall-street-deregulation-bill">Financial CHOICE Act</a>, a sweeping Wall Street deregulation bill that would undo much of Dodd-Frank. The Chamber has been <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/us-chamber-letter-the-financial-choice-act-2017" title="">lobbying</a> fiercely in support of this bill. Among other things, the CHOICE Act would repeal the <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/volcker-rule-summary-3305905">Volcker Rule</a>, a piece of legislation the Chamber loves to hate. The Volcker Rule ensures that banks refrain from engaging in speculative trading with investors’ money, thereby reducing the risk of another financial crisis. The Chamber and the Big Banks are <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/032917_thomas_quaadman_testimony_to_hfs.pdf">against</a> the Volcker Rule because it limits Wall Street’s ability to make short term profits off of risky trades that drive big bonuses for executives but also put the real economy at risk.</p> <p>The CHOICE Act (or as we’ve dubbed it, the “Wrong Choice Act”) would also cripple the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, something the Chamber has <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-cfpb-republicans-20150723-column.html">longed to destroy</a> since it was first created by Dodd-Frank. And while we’re on the topic of the CFPB, the GOP and the Chamber are <em>also</em> pushing to repeal the agency’s <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/arbitration-rule/">ban on forced arbitration</a>. Forced arbitration is a type of “rip-off clause” buried in the fine print of credit card, loan, bank account, and a variety of other contracts that giant corporations use to avoid accountability for wrongdoing.</p> <p>When it comes to the environment, the Chamber and Trump have proven time and time again that they have little regard for planet Earth. In the course of just 3 years, the Chamber opposed the EPA in <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/Chamber%20litigation%20report%20part%201.pdf">court 26 times</a> and they have lobbied on these issues for years. We have little reason to believe Trump won’t renew his vows to destroy the Clean Power Plan during Monday’s speech. Given its decades-long history of doing the dirty work on behalf of the fossil fuel industry as well as other polluting industries, it comes as no surprise that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is also pushing hard for repeal of the clean water rule, also known as the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/wotus-rule">Waters of the United States</a>(WOTUS) rule. The <a href="http://www.centerforcapitalmarkets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/U.S.-Chamber-comments-on-permitting-and-domestic-manufacturing.pdf?x48633">Chamber</a> and <a href="https://www.equipmentworld.com/trump-executive-order-aims-to-streamline-infrastructure-permitting-process/">Trump</a> have also previously indicated that permit streamlining will be one of their top deregulatory priorities, something we suspect may also make an appearance in Monday’s speech.</p> <p>Who exactly are the Chamber and Trump representing by pushing for mass deregulation of public protections? Not voters. <a href="http://qz.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?key=-1&amp;url_num=2&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fsensiblesafeguards.org%2Fpolling%2F">Polling</a> consistently shows that Democrats, Republicans and Independents by overwhelming margins want more protective rules and tougher enforcement – whether the question is framed in general terms or addresses specific regulations.</p> <p>What’s more, regulations could have helped to prevent some of the most catastrophic events in the country. The BP oil spill, an event with which the Chamber is quite familiar, having <a href="http://thelensnola.org/2014/04/16/bp-finds-a-friend-in-the-u-s-chamber-of-commerce-but-look-who-gets-screwed/">repeatedly supported</a> BP in court in litigation against both the U.S. government and American small businesses, has imposed tens of billions of dollars in damages to the Gulf of Mexico and affected Gulf Coast communities, something that could have been prevented by stricter safety regulations. Another catastrophe that could have possibly been avoided with more strict regulation? The 2008 financial crisis, born of out of control risk-taking by Wall Street banks and insurance companies. These sorts of catastrophes, both natural disasters and financial crises, have the potential to devastate families, small businesses, and the environment. When the Chamber pushes its deregulatory agenda, it is yet again lobbying in the interest of yuge corporations at the expense of the small businesses it claims to represent.</p> <p>Tune in to @USChamberWatch and our friends at @RegsRock on Twitter to follow along on Monday. We’ll be fact-checking the President faster than he can say “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/30/presidential-executive-order-reducing-regulation-and-controlling">1 in, 2 out</a>”.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" title="">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" title="">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) GOP RegsRock Regulation trump USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1702783 Fri, 29 Sep 2017 20:27:41 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/9/22/1700553/-U-S-Chamber-Tax-Reform-Won-t-Help-Working-Americans <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p>Three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce pushing for massive tax cuts for giant corporations and the managerial elite. In a <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/09/06/chamber-of-commerce-is-spending-millions-to-target-anti-trump-republicans/">new million dollar ad campaign</a> launched last week, the Chamber depicts average Americans at work, whether behind a cash register or on a factory floor, while the words “create jobs,” “families,” and “the American dream” flash across the screen. In each of these ads, the speakers demand “tax reform,” without ever really specifying what that means. It all seems innocent enough, and could easily fool viewers unfamiliar with the Chamber. But make no mistake, dig down, and the Chamber isn’t interested in tax policies that will invest in Main Street businesses and working Americans; it wants huge cuts for its corporate membership and the ultra-wealthy who run and own these companies. The Chamber’s new ad campaign is just the group’s latest attempt to advance a Big Business agenda by pretending that it would help working people and small businesses.</p> <p>So how exactly is the Chamber proposing to change our tax code? Its “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/tax-reform-now">Tax Reform Now</a>” website is remarkably devoid of specifics, limiting itself to calling for “pro-growth” tax reform. “Pro-growth” is Chamber-speak for trickle-down economics: cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy and employment and wage growth will magically appear. (Of course, the <a href="http://www.faireconomy.org/trickle_down_economics_four_reasons">data</a> prove trickle-down to be nothing more than a right-wing fantasy.)</p> <p>The Chamber’s new ad campaign doesn’t offer many specifics either. The ads may call for closing loopholes, but the Chamber fails to mention exactly <em>which</em> loopholes.</p> <p>If you want to really understand what the Chamber wants to get out of tax “reform,” you have to look at the group’s <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/5/25/1665935/-Who-s-Behind-Trump-Tax-Reform-The-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce">history</a> of lobbying for a bevy of tax giveaways for giant corporations and the ultra-rich. Let’s take, for example, the subject of closing loopholes, mentioned in the Chamber’s ads. Unfortunately,  it doesn’t seem likely that one of the loopholes the Chamber wants closed is the <a href="http://takeonwallstreet.org/end-tax-exemption-for-huge-ceo-bonuses/">CEO Bonus loophole</a>, which allows companies to exploit a quirk in the law and give their CEOs multimillion-dollar bonuses and deduct this amount from their taxable income. This loophole effectively subsidizes already out of control executive pay while increasing the incentives for excessive risk-taking, and it costs taxpayers an estimated <a href="http://takeonwallstreet.org/end-tax-exemption-for-huge-ceo-bonuses/">$5 billion</a> a year!</p> <p>Nor are we holding our breath waiting for the Chamber to demand that the <a href="http://billmoyers.com/story/carried-interest-loophole-makes-super-rich-super-richer/">carried-interest loophole</a> be closed, given that they have supported retaining the loophole <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/legacy/issues/econtax/files/Carried%20Interest%20One%20Pager%20Updated.pdf">in the past</a>. This loophole allows hedge fund and private equity fund managers to claim part of what is really salaried income as capital gains instead, which allows them to pay only a 20 percent tax rate as opposed to the 39.6 percent income tax they likely otherwise would pay. This loophole benefits <a href="http://billmoyers.com/story/carried-interest-loophole-makes-super-rich-super-richer/">only 2,000</a> taxpayers yet it is blowing a hole in the budget, estimated at around <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/2016/52258" title="">$2 billion</a> per year.</p> <p>While the Chamber at least mentions closing loopholes in its ads, there are lots of things it doesn’t mention, probably because they benefit corporations and the wealthy and not the working people featured in the ads. Let’s start with the Chamber’s <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/here-s-the-chamber-s-tax-reform-roadmap" title="">support</a> for a rate cut for “pass-through” businesses (companies that file taxes through the owners’ individual taxes versus paying corporate tax.) Such a rate cut would disproportionately benefit the wealthy.</p> <p>While the Chamber may claim that cutting the tax rate on pass-through enterprises would benefit small businesses, more than <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/blog/look-past-the-small-business-rhetoric-to-see-trumps-actual-policies">70 percent of filers</a> with pass-through income already pay rates at or below 15 percent, meaning they would see no benefit from the proposal. The vast majority of this tax cut will really go to the Chamber’s millionaire and billionaire allies, not to mom and pop shops. What’s more, real small businesses may be hurt because big tax cuts may result in big spending cuts, thereby reducing funding for services vital to Main Street businesses, including investment in infrastructure, education, and assistance for small businesses.</p> <p>Another item on the Chamber’s tax cut wish list is abolishing the estate tax. The Chamber has been a <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/legacy/issues/econtax/files/THE%20ESTATE%20TAX%204.29.2011.pdf">staunch opponent</a> of the estate tax for years, claiming that it harms family businesses, though that’s <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/billionaires-bluff-estate-tax-report.pdf">plainly not true</a>. Under the current rules, the estate tax only applies to estates valued at more than is $5.49 million and $10.98 million per couple. Estimates <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/blog/the-myth-that-the-estate-tax-threatens-small-farms">show</a> that only 50 small farms and small business estates in all of the United States are likely to pay estate tax in 2017.</p> <p>The Chamber has argued time and <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/comment-letter-tax-reform-chairman-hatch">time again</a> that tax “reform” must include cutting the corporate tax rate. The Chamber loves to <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/5-things-i-hate-about-the-tax-code">claim</a> that our taxes are the highest in the developed world, and argues that by making America’s corporate tax rate competitive with the rest of the world, jobs will be kept in America. What the Chamber fails to mention is that the effective rate companies pay in the U.S. is actually much <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-the-u-s-have-the-highest-corporate-tax-rate-in-the-world"><em>lower</em></a>  (18.6 percent on average, with some industries like gas and electric companies paying a rate in the low single digits). What’s more, many wealthy corporations frequently get away with paying <a href="https://itep.org/fifteen-of-many-reasons-we-need-corporate-tax-reform/" title="">no federal income taxes</a>. And a recent study has shown that companies that pay lower effective rates have actually <a href="http://www.ips-dc.org/report-corporate-tax-cuts-boost-ceo-pay-not-jobs/">reduced employment</a> while companies that pay higher effective rates have added employment. Slashing the corporate tax rate as the Chamber wants will pad the pockets of CEOs and rich stockholders, while doing very little to spur investment or create jobs.</p> <p>The tax code changes championed by the Chamber and seemingly agreed to by Trump and the GOP are rigged in favor of billionaires and big corporations – they constitute a massive tax giveaway to the super rich and a payback scheme for the Chamber’s big business members.</p> <p>So don’t believe those Chamber ads you may see on TV – the Chamber’s version of tax ”reform” won’t help the working Americans featured in the ads, but it would line the pockets of the corporations and oligarchs who least need a tax cut.</p> <p><em>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on <a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a> or follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) CarriedInterest ChamberofCommerce DonaldTrump EstateTax GOP Tax Taxes TaxReform trump USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1700553 Fri, 22 Sep 2017 11:08:08 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/9/11/1697702/-The-Chamber-s-Small-Business-Sham <p>This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will host its annual <a href="https://www.smallbusinessseries.com/event-schedule/" title="">Small Business Summit</a> in Washington, DC. The stated purpose of the three day event is to provide small businesses with tools and strategies “to successfully compete in today’s rapidly changing business environment.” While this sounds well and good, the Chamber unsurprisingly fails (yet again) to mention that its role as “the voice of small business” is really just a sham.</p> <p>The Summit agenda consists of a multitude of panels, including “How to Get Your Company Thinking Like a Startup,” “Your State’s Lawsuit Climate and How It Affects Small Businesses,” and “How and Why Your Business Grows (or Doesn’t).” Sure, these panels  sound innocent enough to someone who isn’t well-versed on the Chamber, but in reality—they hide the many  times the Chamber has lobbied to stack the deck against small businesses. We’ve taken the liberty of renaming and reframing the Summit panels so that they are more honest about the Chamber’s relationship with small business:</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><strong>Litigating Against Small Business for Beginners: Chamber vs. Main Street</strong></p> <p><em>Looking to keep consumers out of court? Hoping to sue a mom-and-pop shop? This panel is for you! </em></p> <p>While the Chamber may claim to be the voice of small businesses in Washington, when it comes to litigation, it can be consistently relied upon to favor the huge corporations that fund it. Whether it’s arguing for reduced access to the courts, opposing stricter supervision of Wall Street banks designed to reduce the risk of future financial crises, fighting for Big Oil against emissions controls, or supporting Big Pharma’s schemes to keep drug prices sky high, the Chamber always comes down on the side of its deep-pocketed Big Business patrons, ignoring the impact on small businesses. In fact, <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber_litigation_report_part_1.pdf" title="">in a report</a> earlier this year, Chamber Watch found that the Chamber files a brief roughly every other day of the work week, and in almost 60 percent of cases, the Chamber supported at least one Fortune 500 company. In comparison, it supported a domestic small business only 7 percent of the time. In fact, it supported a foreign multinational twice as often as it did a domestic small business. Companies the Chamber litigated on behalf of included State Farm, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Allstate, Berkshire Hathaway, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, AIG, and JP Morgan Chase, ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, BP, PPL, and Shell, to name a few.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><strong>Regulations help Small Business? Deny Deny Deny 101</strong></p> <p><em>Have you heard the term “</em><a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/trimming-the-overgrown-hedge-red-tape" title=""><em>red tape</em></a><em>” but aren’t sure how to work it into every day conversation? Stop by this lecture to hear from Chamber experts on their experience in denying that regulations actually help rather than hurt small businesses. This panel will equip you with all the tools you need to ignore the statistics that show small businesses support regulation and steer the conversation elsewhere. Did someone say red tape?</em></p> <p>The Chamber has a long history of opposing regulations under the guise of being a voice for small business. From the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/featured/overtime"><span>overtime rule</span></a>, to the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cleanwaterrule" title=""><span>Clean Water Rule</span></a>  to the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/clean-power-plan-existing-power-plants"><span>Clean Power Plan</span></a><span><span>,</span></span> to the <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/open-internet" title=""><span>open internet rules</span></a> (have we made our point?) it has yet to meet a regulation it didn’t want rolled back.  According to <a href="https://www.smallbusinessmajority.org/our-research/government-accountability/small-business-owners%E2%80%99-opinions-regulations-and-job-creation" title=""><span>a poll</span></a> by Small Business Majority, 86 percent of small business owners agree some regulation of business is necessary for a modern economy, and 93 percent of them agree their business can live with some regulation if it is fair, manageable and reasonable. What’s more, 78 percent of small employers agree regulations are important in protecting small businesses from unfair competition and to level the playing field with big business. Another 79 percent of small business owners support having clean air and water in their community in order to keep their family, employees and customers healthy, and 61 percent support standards that move the country towards energy efficiency and clean energy.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><strong>Net Non-Neutrality: Even We Know We’re Wrong on This One </strong></p> <p><em>Are you an AT&amp;T or Comcast employee who accidentally wandered into this Summit? You’re in the right place now! </em></p> <p>The Chamber has conceded<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/why-most-americans-stayed-neutral-the-internet-day-action"><span> that the vast majority of Americans</span></a>, support net neutrality. In fact, even smaller internet service providers (ISPs,) part of the small business community that the Chamber loves to claim to represent, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/net-neutrality/story?id=48596615" title=""><span>support net neutrality regulations</span></a> because they prevent larger competitors from gaining an unfair advantage. Proponents of net neutrality argue that by ensuring equal treatment of all internet content, companies <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-net-neutrality-debate-in-2-minutes-or-less/" title=""><span>compete on a level playing field</span></a> and consumers are able to access whatever content they want without issue. Meanwhile, the  Chamber and other opponents argue that net neutrality regulations <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-welcomes-the-fcc-s-restoring-internet-freedom-rulemaking"><span>limit incentives</span></a> for ISPs to improve their networks. These critics argue that without charging companies to guarantee access to content, ISPs <a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/network-neutrality/do-network-neutrality-regulations-discourage-investment-in-broadband"><span>won’t have the money necessary to make these investments</span></a>. In reality, investment in internet infrastructure has <a href="https://www.freepress.net/resource/107129/truth-about-isp-industry-investment-after-fcc-net-neutrality-vote"><span>not decreased</span></a> as a result of net neutrality regulations. That leaves only one constituency in favor of deregulation: giant telecom companies.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p>With its anti-small business record so clear, why does the Chamber still keep up its yearly sham? Apparently the “Big Business Summit” just doesn’t have the same ring…</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title="">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce NetNeutrality SmallBusiness USChamberofCommerce _1697702 Mon, 11 Sep 2017 18:26:06 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/8/31/1694961/-Corporate-Power-Grab-Chamber-of-Commerce-Fights-to-Preserve-NAFTA-ISDS-Tribunals <p>As the United States, Canada, and Mexico begin talks aimed at renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-business-groups-affirm-support-for-nafta-arbitration-panels-1503591518?mg=prod/accounts-wsj">warning</a> the Trump administration not to touch investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in the existing agreement.</p> <p>What is ISDS and why is it so important to the Chamber, the nation’s largest corporate lobbying group?</p> <p>ISDS gives multinational corporations the ability to challenge government policies not before the courts, but before <a href="https://www.citizen.org/our-work/globalization-and-trade/investor-state-system">international arbitration tribunals</a> made up of three corporate lawyers. Multinational corporations can avail themselves of ISDS to challenge laws and regulations protecting consumer health and safety, the environment, and the stability of the financial system, among other things. If an ISDS tribunal rules in favor of a corporation, a government can be ordered to pay the corporation unlimited sums of taxpayer money, including for the loss of claimed future profits. What’s more, the arbitrators are not bound to legal precedent and their decisions cannot be appealed.</p> <p>Quite obviously, ISDS is extremely problematic for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it undermines national sovereignty and the rule of law. Instead of national courts ruling on corporate challenges to national laws and regulations, unaccountable, supranational corporate lawyers-cum-arbitrators are given the power to decide whether laws enacted by our democratically elected government violate the special rights granted to corporations under NAFTA. How’s that for respecting the rule of law?</p> <p>But beyond the foundational problem of handing over such immense power to supranational arbitrators, ISDS also presents the problem of being irretrievably riven by <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/ustr-isds-response.pdf">conflicts of interest</a>. A corporate lawyer who represents a multinational corporation in one ISDS case may also serve as an arbitrator for a different ISDS case brought by a different corporation. Arbitrators are therefore incentivized to come up with novel legal interpretations favorable to corporate claimants which could in turn result in more corporations bringing more ISDS cases thereby creating more legal work for them in their capacity as lawyers. Even worse, arbitrators may have business or financial <a href="https://corporateeurope.org/trade/2012/11/chapter-4-who-guards-guardians-conflicting-interests-investment-arbitrators" title="">relationships</a> with companies whose cases they are hearing.</p> <p>The dangers presented by ISDS aren’t only theoretical; they are all too real. More than <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/factsheet-isds-february2017.pdf">$390 million</a> in taxpayer money has been paid to corporations in ISDS claims under NAFTA, with more than <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/factsheet-isds-february2017.pdf">$36 billion</a> pending in ongoing NAFTA cases.</p> <p>In 2015, a NAFTA ISDS tribunal <a href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/nafta-ruling-against-canada-sparks-fears-over-future-dispute-settlements/article23603613/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&amp;">ruled against</a> Canada in a case brought by a U.S. mining company. Canada’s crime? That its environmental impact assessment thwarted the American company’s plan to expand a quarry located in an environmentally sensitive area. The Canadian government was ordered to pay <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/factsheet-isds-february2017.pdf" title="">more than $100 million</a> in taxpayers’ money to the American company.</p> <p><span>Or consider an ISDS tribunal’s 2015 <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/exxonmobil-s-nafta-win-over-oil-r-d-called-corporate-bullying-1.2984879">ruling against</a> the Canadian government, ordering it to fork over more than $17 million in taxpayers’ money to Exxon. In this case, the government required any oil company operating in Newfoundland to contribute a small share of oil revenue to fund research and development in the economically struggling province in order to obtain a drilling license.</span></p> <p><span>While the U.S. (and U.S. taxpayers) have thus far dodged the bullet of adverse ISDS rulings, we are far from immune to its dangers. For example, in 2016, TransCanada, the oil company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/01/08/transcanada-is-suing-the-u-s-over-obamas-rejection-of-the-keystone-xl-pipeline-the-u-s-might-lose/?utm_term=.3ebbd3e10a46" title="">sued</a> the U.S. government before an ISDS tribunal, claiming $15 billion in compensation as a result of the Obama administration’s decision not to approve the construction of the pipeline. When Donald Trump reversed the decision, allowing the pipeline to move forward, TransCanada’s case remained in limbo until the White House clarified that a previous Trump executive order calling for pipelines to be constructed with American-made steel and pipe would not apply to Keystone XL. The State Department then promptly issued the permit, and TransCanada dropped its case. Close observers suspected that the quick permit approval and the Buy American steel/pipe waiver were likely the “settlement” price extracted from the Trump administration by TransCanada for dropping its NAFTA claim. </span></p> <p><span>It’s only a matter of time before U.S. taxpayers are left on the hook, ordered to pay a corporation millions and perhaps billions of dollars by an ISDS tribunal. ISDS cases were once rather rare, with <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/factsheet-isds-february2017.pdf" title="">only 50</a> being filed in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s combined. But they are now exploding in number, with roughly 50 cases being filed in <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/factsheet-isds-february2017.pdf">each</a> of the last six years. </span></p> <p><span>You might think that the <em>United States</em> Chamber of Commerce would show some concern for preserving the integrity of the American legal system and the rule of law, both of which have greatly contributed to the economic success of the United States. You would be mistaken. The Chamber’s dogged support of ISDS – an unaccountable, conflict-riven system than undermines state sovereignty in favor of corporate power – proves once again that it prioritizes corporate profits above all else.</span></p> <p><span><em>For more information on ISDS, check out </em></span><em><a href="http://www.isdscorporateattacks.org/" target="_blank" title="">www.isdscorporateattacks.org</a></em><span><em><em>.</em> For more information on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, </em></span><em>you can always visit us on <a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title="">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a> or follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" title="">Twitter.</a></em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) Canada ChamberofCommerce DonaldTrump ExxonMobil InvestorStateDisputeSettlement ISDS KeystoneXL Mexico NAFTA NorthAmericanFreeTradeAgreement Trade TradeAgreements TransCanada trump U.S.ChamberofCommerce UNITEDSTATESCHAMBEROFCOMMERCE USChamberofCommerce _1694961 Thu, 31 Aug 2017 15:30:37 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/8/24/1692949/-Who-Will-Chamber-Side-With-in-Wells-Fargo-vs-Mom-Pop-Shops <p>Wells Fargo has done it again. And again. And again. This time, instead of creating <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/timeline-wells-fargo-accounts-scandal/story?id=42231128">fake accounts</a> that customers weren’t aware of, or allegedly charging them for auto insurance they <a href="http://time.com/money/4891376/wells-fargo-scandal-car-loans-probe/" title="">didn’t need</a>, Wells Fargo has come for the mom and pop shops of Main Street, USA.  </p> <p>A new <a href="https://consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/1-main.pdf" title="">class action lawsuit</a> alleges that Wells Fargo has been overcharging small businesses for processing credit card transactions, asserting that Wells’ 63-page Merchant Processing Application included “voluminous legalese that could not possibly be read in its entirety or understood by merchant customers.” The suit claims that various fine print provisions allowed the bank to charge merchants arbitrary fees.</p> <p>According to the suit, one of the plaintiffs in the case, a small business owner in Charlotte, was charged monthly fees for failing to meet a minimum number of transactions, a minimum he believed had been waived. Another plaintiff, a Pennsylvania small business owner, claims he was charged numerous additional fees including monthly charges even after his business closed. In each case, fine print clauses in the contract were used to justify the imposition of these additional fees.  </p> <p>This case is yet another example of Wells Fargo using fine print to rip off its customers, be they individual consumers or small businesses. In the fake account scandal, <span><span>Wells continuously used forced arbitration clauses buried in fine print to block class actions challenging its improper behavior. These “rip-off” clauses, commonly found in contracts for a variety of financial products such as banks accounts, credit cards, and loans, ban individuals and small businesses from banding together and challenging wrongdoing in court. </span></span></p> <p><span><span>Instead of litigating allegations of fraud and other abusive practices in court before a neutral judge, banks like Wells Fargo can force consumers and small businesses into an individual and secretive arbitration process where the arbitrator who will hear the case is a person chosen by the financial institution. By robbing defrauded customers of their day in court, financial institutions are able to get away with widespread misconduct, because few people have the time or resources to pursue often small dollar claims alone in secret arbitration. </span></span></p> <p>While much of the Wells coverage to date has been heavily focused on defrauded consumers, rip-off clauses harm small businesses as well, making it nearly impossible for small business owners to protest hidden fees, illegal debt collection, and other deceptive or unfair practices. <span>Almost any time a mom and pop store does business with a financial services company, chances are the contract contains a rip-off clause. Nearly all credit card agreements force customers into arbitration if there is a dispute – and </span>credit cards are one of the <a href="https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/Finance-FAQ-2016_WEB.pdf">top three sources</a> of short term capital used by small businesses.</p> <p>It seems probable that this latest case will end up being another instance in which Wells will attempt to use forced arbitration as a “get out of jail free” card.</p> <p>Fortunately, a newly released <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/weve-issued-new-rule-arbitration-help-groups-people-take-companies-court/">rule</a> from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will<span> prohibit banks and lenders that </span><a href="http://www.noripoffclause.com/" title="">break the law</a><span> from stripping consumers of the right to join together and hold these institutions accountable in class action lawsuits. Small businesses that use consumer financial products will also be protected by this rule. </span></p> <p><span>That’s the good news.  Now the bad news. The </span>U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s most powerful business lobby, is already <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/key-vote-letter-house-support-hj-res-111-disapproving-cfpbs-anti-arbitration-rule" title="">pushing</a> Congress to kill the rule and rob consumers of the ability to join together to hold banks accountable in court for wrongdoing. <span>Without the CFPB arbitration rule, Wells Fargo and other financial services companies will continue to pocket billions in ill-gotten gains at the expense of consumers and small businesses. This new rule will restore accountability and transparency, making our financial system stronger and safer for all of us. </span></p> <p>The Chamber has a tough choice to make. On the one hand, it has lobbied extensively <a href="http://time.com/money/4454932/mandatory-arbitration-cfpb-rule/">against</a> limits on rip-off clauses and is now is urging Republicans in Congress to repeal the rule under the <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/" title="">Congressional Review Act</a>. On the other, it repeatedly claims to be the voice of small business.</p> <p>So, when the rubber meets the road, will the Chamber continue lobbying to give a free pass to institutions like Wells Fargo, or will it stand up for the small businesses it claims to represent in its promotional materials? If the Chamber really is the voice of small of business, then this latest case against Wells Fargo presents a perfect opportunity for the Chamber to put its money where its mouth is. The Chamber should take a stand on behalf of mom and pop shops by ceasing to defend the rip-off clauses big banks use to take advantage of small businesses. Otherwise, it’s simply defending corporate greed.</p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) CFPB ChamberofCommerce Ripoffclause USChamber USChamberofCommerce WellsFargo _1692949 Thu, 24 Aug 2017 19:41:17 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/8/8/1687785/-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-s-Embrace-of-the-Gig-Economy-Points-to-Downside-for-Workers <p class="is-empty-p" style="text-align:center"></p> <p>Last week, a federal judge <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-seeking-to-block-seattle-law-allowing-uber-and-lyft-drivers-to-unionize/">dismissed a case</a> against a Seattle ordinance that would allow Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize. Seattle’s <a href="https://www.seattle.gov/business-regulations/taxis-for-hires-and-tncs/for-hire-driver-collective-bargaining">ordin</a>ance was passed in 2015 and would <a href="https://www.seattle.gov/council/issues/giving-drivers-a-voice">enable drivers</a> to band together and collectively bargain with giant ride-hailing companies regarding pay, benefits, and working conditions.</p> <p>The plaintiff in this case was none other than that relentless defender of corporate exploitation — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber <a href="http://www.chamberlitigation.com/cases/chamber-commerce-v-city-seattle">argued</a> without any evidence that the “ordinance will burden innovation, increase prices, and reduce quality and services for consumers.” This is actually the second complaint that the Chamber has filed against this law — an <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/us-chamber-sues-seattle-a-second-time-over-uber-union-law/">earlier case</a> was thrown out last year — although another suit against the ordinance <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-seeking-to-block-seattle-law-allowing-uber-and-lyft-drivers-to-unionize/">is still ongoing</a>.</p> <p>The rights of Uber and Lyft drivers have become an increasingly contentious subject as the ride-hailing platforms have expanded. Although the Seattle ordinance is <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-seeking-to-block-seattle-law-allowing-uber-and-lyft-drivers-to-unionize/">designed to bypass this issue</a>, much of the debate centers on how to classify these drivers in terms of their relationship with the ride hailing companies for which they work. Uber and Lyft have an incentive to categorize their drivers as “independent contractors”. This enables the companies to dodge monetary obligations — such as payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare as well as providing health insurance — that come with a traditional employer-employee relationship.</p> <p>Workers’ rights advocates believe that drivers should be <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/uber-business-model-does-not-justify-a-new-independent-worker-category/">considered employees</a>. After all, <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/uber-business-model-does-not-justify-a-new-independent-worker-category/">prices are set by Uber and Lyft</a> rather than by their “independent” drivers. As employees, drivers would be entitled to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/lyft-drivers-uber-sharing-economy-employees/431631/">overtime pay, workers’ compensation, and other important rights</a> that this status would afford them. In any case, it is easy to see why drivers have voiced concerns about the existing arrangement that deprives them of a host of rights, benefits, and protections.</p> <p>The current arrangement, under which ride hailing companies treat their drivers as independent contractors with no formal employment contract, has revealed itself to be seriously flawed. Despite Uber’s claims to the contrary, some of its workers <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-drivers-say-theyre-making-less-than-minimum-wage-2014-10">fail to make minimum wage</a>. The company is also notorious for its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/09/uber-drivers-report-sweated-labour-minimum-wage">mistreatment of drivers</a>. In fact, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/02/technology/uber-drivers-psychological-tricks.html">report</a> by the New York Times detailed the types of mind games the company plays in order to get more rides out of its drivers. While Lyft enjoys a far better public reputation, the company <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-lyft-settlement-20160126-story.html">still confronts questions</a> over the status of its workers. Allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize could be a solution to many of these problems as it would provide drivers with the bargaining power necessary to successfully negotiate with giant corporations.</p> <p>The Chamber is predictably opposed to unionizing the ride hailing industry. According to the Chamber, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/02/17/unions-uber-economy/#2b3b8ef868c8">unions are simply relics of the past</a> and the push to represent Uber and Lyft drivers represents a “last gasp” of sorts. The Chamber argues that unionization would <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/02/17/unions-uber-economy/#c2a799b68c8e">limit the freedom</a> of these drivers and that ordinances like the one in Seattle would constitute <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/article/seattle-s-christmas-gift-the-teamsters">a violation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and antitrust law</a>. However, in dismissing the case against the ordinance, the district court judge noted that the <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-seeking-to-block-seattle-law-allowing-uber-and-lyft-drivers-to-unionize/">NLRA does not in fact prevent the city from passing such a law</a> covering independent contractors.</p> <p>The dispute over the Seattle ordinance and the status of Uber and Lyft drivers points to a larger debate about the nature of the “gig economy”. The gig economy — in which people earn money through flexible, short-term arrangements like driving for Uber or performing chores on Task Rabbit — represents a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/is-the-gig-economy-working">major shift in the workforce over the past few years</a>.  While the gig economy has expanded earning opportunities for many, it also <a href="http://www.epi.org/blog/risk-shift-and-the-gig-economy/">poses serious risks</a> for individuals who operate outside of traditional employee contracts. Unions could help to ensure that gig economy workers have access to <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp143/">health plans, higher wages, paid leave</a> and a certain amount of <a href="http://prospect.org/article/unions-precarious-economy">employment stability</a>. While a recent survey revealed that a majority of gig economy workers believe they should have <a href="http://burson-marsteller.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/06151052/BM_On-Demand-Economy-Survey-Infographic-V4.pdf">access to greater benefits</a>, the Chamber argues that the gig economy “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/article/seattle-s-christmas-gift-the-teamsters">seems to be working just fine.</a>”</p> <p>The Chamber’s insistence that everything is going swimmingly with the gig economy should come as no surprise. The gig economy has been a boon to giant corporations by reducing their labor costs, and the Chamber has a consistent record of putting profits before people. The Chamber also has a <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/3/1/1639145/-The-Chamber-s-Never-Ending-War-on-Workers">long history of fighting</a> against workers’ protections, given that it was initially founded “<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/5/1607526/-First-in-a-New-Series-Exposing-the-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce">to act as a counterweight to the growing labor movement.</a>” The gig economy’s role in goosing corporate profits while weakening the labor movement explains why the Chamber was so determined to fight the Seattle ordinance in court.</p> <p>It is often easy to become seduced by the siren song of technological “progress” and “innovation.” The Chamber’s embrace of the gig economy should serve as a warning to us all that simply because an industry is new and “innovative” doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be scrutinized to see if it treats its workers fairly and justly.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce CollectiveBargaining GigEconomy Labor Lyft Seattle Tech Uber Unions USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1687785 Tue, 08 Aug 2017 13:45:55 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/8/3/1686565/-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-Pushes-Dangerous-NLRB-Nominees-in-Effort-to-Stack-the-Deck-Against-Workers <p><span>Marvin Kaplan is being rushed through the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/" title="">National Labor Relations Board</a> (NLRB) nomination process faster than you can hire and fire <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/us/politics/trump-white-house-obamacare-health.html" title="">Anthony Scaramucci</a>. Kaplan, currently counsel at the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, and previously employed by House Republicans on the education and oversight committees, received a <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/170712_nomination_pizzella_kaplan_emanuel_senate_help_committee.pdf">swift and enthusiastic backing</a> from the <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/3/1/1639145/-The-Chamber-s-Never-Ending-War-on-Workers">anti-worker</a> U.S. Chamber of Commerce. </span></p> <p><span>This past February, the Chamber <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/report/restoring-common-sense-labor-law-ten-policies-fix-the-national-labor-relations-board">outlined</a> what it believes to be the ten most pressing policies that require action at the NLRB and the many instances in which the Obama-era NLRB allegedly “stack[ed] the deck against employers.” The list covers a range of anti-worker topics, many of which Kaplan boasts about having experience in on his <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/marvin-kaplan-4bb36614/">Linkedin account</a>, including his “efforts to fight DOL overtime rules." The <a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/the-chambers-opposition-to-higher-wages-isnt-good-for-business/">overtime rule</a> would provide overtime pay to millions of workers and would have the salutary benefit of exerting upward pressure on wages for middle income Americans whose salaries have long been stagnant. Kaplan also boasts about drafting the “Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act,” a piece of legislation the <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/article/us-house-passes-workforce-democracy-and-fairness-act">Chamber backed</a>, which sought to undo the NLRB rule that cut the waiting time for union elections down to as few as 10 days.  </span></p> <p><span>While the Chamber’s labor policy wish list touches on a plethora of issues, it focuses most intently on collective bargaining. <a href="https://aflcio.org/what-unions-do/empower-workers/collective-bargaining">Collective bargaining</a>, an effective means of raising wages (no wonder the Chamber hates it!), is the process by which workers, with their unions, negotiate contracts with their employers. Terms of employment that are oftentimes covered in collective bargaining include wages, benefits, hours, worker safety and a slew of other protections.  The NLRB is frequently asked to rule on disputes relating to collective bargaining in addition to many other <a href="http://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/smart-money/labor-unions-whats-their-future-under-trump/">high-profile labor topics</a>, including <a href="http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202780977424/Labor-Regulators-Urge-DC-Circuit-to-Uphold-New-JointEmployer-Standard" target="_blank">examination of “joint employer” relationships</a>, and will be looked to to make a determination as to whether or not graduate students should be considered employees with the right to unionize. </span></p> <p><span>Kaplan isn’t the only bad actor being nominated to the NLRB. William Emanuel of the law firm Littler Mendelson, has also been nominated, and has also received <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/article/white-house-submits-emanuel-nlrb">support</a> from the Chamber. Kaplan and Emanuel, both nominated at the end of June both had hearings less than 3 weeks later, one of the speediest nomination processes thus far in the Trump administration.  </span></p> <p><span>Trump, the Chamber, and their GOP allies in the House and Senate have all complained that under Obama, the NLRB imposed what they deem to be burdensome regulations on businesses. Their criticisms of the NLRB indicate that they fundamentally misunderstand that one of the major functions of the board is to enforce the 1935 <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/resources/national-labor-relations-act">National Labor Relations Act</a>, guaranteeing the right of most private sector employees to organize.</span></p> <p><span>It comes as no surprise that the Chamber is asking for a swift confirmation process. Randy Johnson, senior vice president of labor, immigration, and employee benefits for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, refers to Kaplan as a “<a href="https://www.law360.com/articles/918594/trump-picks-oshrc-counsel-for-labor-board-seat">balanced and thoughtful</a>” individual, going on to say that the Chamber has “worked with Marvin over the years and he will be a great addition to the NLRB.” Which, when translated out of Chamber-speak, means something more along the lines of, “this is just the guy we need to achieve those <a title="">ten policy goals</a>!” The Chamber’s support for each of these nominees is rooted in its desire to destroy worker protections in an effort to protect corporate profits; the speed at which the nomination process is occurring just goes to show how antsy the Chamber and its GOP allies are to strip workers of their rights and hand over even more power to giant corporations. </span></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce CollectiveBargaining DonaldTrump GOP Labor marvinkaplan NationalLaborRelationsBoard OverTime OvertimeRule trump U.S.ChamberofCommerce Unions UNITEDSTATESCHAMBEROFCOMMERCE USChamberofCommerce WilliamEmanuel Workers WorkersRights _1686565 Thu, 03 Aug 2017 13:27:45 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/7/26/1684222/-On-Net-Neutrality-the-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-again-sides-with-Big-Business-over-Consumers <p>On July 12, activist groups and tech companies came together to protest a potential rollback of net neutrality regulations under the Trump administration. These rules are designed to ensure equal access to all internet content. Billed as a “<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15957800/day-of-action-protest-net-neutrality">Day of Action</a>”, the event ultimately generated around <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-gets-more-10-million-comments-on-net-neutrality/">two million comments</a> to the FCC opposing this deregulation.</p> <p>The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/why-most-americans-stayed-neutral-the-internet-day-action">unimpressed</a>.</p> <p>Two million comments apparently mean little compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars the Chamber receives in corporate donations. As always, when faced with a choice between supporting consumer or corporate interests, the Chamber puts profits before people. And under a president who has made a point of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-regulation-idUSKBN1A51O1">undoing regulations</a> created by his predecessor, the Chamber has had plenty of opportunities to demonstrate its convictions.</p> <p>The Trump administration’s entire deregulatory crusade has disastrous implications for the American public, and the proposed net neutrality rollbacks are no exception. If net neutrality regulations are eliminated, larger ISPs will be able to <a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/network-neutrality/whats-network-neutrality">privilege certain web content over others</a>. This means that ISPs like AT&amp;T and Comcast could potentially charge companies to guarantee easy access to web content, and this would damage users’ ability to access content from less well-funded sites.</p> <p>Our current system of net neutrality regulations were <a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/network-neutrality/what-is-the-open-internet-order" title="">created</a> in 2015 under President Obama. The rules <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/net-neutrality-don-t-break-the-internet">provoked a spate of criticism from the Chamber</a>. In fact, the Chamber claimed that such protections are “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-statement-fcc-s-net-neutrality-decision">a bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist</a>,” even though companies such as Netflix had already detailed <a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/network-neutrality/how-does-netflixs-recent-peering-dispute-with-comcast-affect-net">discriminatory treatment</a> by ISPs.</p> <p>Net neutrality proponents argue that by ensuring equal treatment of all internet content, companies <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-net-neutrality-debate-in-2-minutes-or-less/">compete on a level playing field</a> and consumers are able to access whatever content they want without issue. Meanwhile, opponents such as the Chamber argue that net neutrality regulations <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-welcomes-the-fcc-s-restoring-internet-freedom-rulemaking">limit incentives</a> for ISPs to improve their networks. These critics argue that without charging companies to guarantee access to content, ISPs <a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/network-neutrality/do-network-neutrality-regulations-discourage-investment-in-broadband" title="">won’t have the money necessary to make these investments</a>. In reality, investment in internet infrastructure has <a href="https://www.freepress.net/resource/107129/truth-about-isp-industry-investment-after-fcc-net-neutrality-vote">not decreased</a> as a result of net neutrality regulations.</p> <p>The Chamber <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/why-most-americans-stayed-neutral-the-internet-day-action">concedes that the vast majority of Americans</a>, including Trump voters, support net neutrality. In fact, even smaller ISPs, part of the small business community that the Chamber loves to claim to represent, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/net-neutrality/story?id=48596615" title="">support net neutrality regulations</a> because they prevent larger competitors from gaining an unfair advantage. That leaves only one constituency in favor of deregulation: giant corporations such as Comcast and AT&amp;T. And on this issue (like many others), Big Business is the only constituency that the Chamber can credibly claim to represent.</p> <p>In addition to its public advocacy work against net neutrality, the Chamber is clearly willing to put money behind its position. The Chamber’s <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientissues_spec.php?id=D000019798&amp;year=2015&amp;spec=TEC" title="">lobbying disclosures</a> from 2015 — when the rules were implemented — include five separate mentions of work on net neutrality. It’s mentioned on <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientissues_spec.php?id=D000019798&amp;year=2017&amp;spec=TEC">this year’s</a> disclosures as well.  What’s more, the Chamber’s opposition to the net neutrality rule isn’t even shared by all large corporations. Facebook and Google belong to the Chamber and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/7/15938022/facebook-goolge-net-neutrality-protest-day-of-action-fcc">both participated</a> in the “Day of Action”.</p> <p>As a result of the overwhelming support from the public and even some members, the Chamber has had to revamp its message on the issue. The Chamber, like <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/07/12/how-isps-responding-internets-net-neutrality-protest/473182001/">AT&amp;T and other ISPs</a>, argue that they are not actually opposed to net neutrality. Instead, they take issue with the <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/why-most-americans-stayed-neutral-the-internet-day-action">current means of enforcing these rules</a>.</p> <p>How do they thread this needle? Well, under the rules created during the Obama administration, the FCC regulates internet providers as entities that offer <a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/network-neutrality/why-did-the-court-rule-the-fccs-network-neutrality-rules-illegal">“telecommunications services” rather than “information services”</a>. This important regulatory distinction enables the FCC to impose stricter rules on ISPs, yet the Chamber <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/why-most-americans-stayed-neutral-the-internet-day-action">claims</a> that net neutrality could be achieved even if this framework were thrown out. By attacking the classification system, rather than net neutrality itself, the Chamber and large ISPs can claim that they are not directly opposing consumer interests.</p> <p>But in reality, if this framework was dropped by the regulator, it would severely limit the FCC’s power to ensure access to a free and fair internet, and the Chamber and the big ISPs are well aware of the implications of such a move. Moreover, by <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-welcomes-the-fcc-s-restoring-internet-freedom-rulemaking">arguing</a> that Congress should instead pass a law establishing net neutrality, the Chamber is suggesting a solution that it surely knows is unlikely to be passed anytime soon, given the legislative gridlock that has characterized the last several congresses. In the meantime, the ISPs could go back to slowing the delivery of content from Netflix and any other companies they choose.</p> <p>The push to deregulate the internet is led by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/technology/net-neutrality.html?_r=0" title="">Ajit Pai</a>, recently named chairman of the FCC by President Trump. The Chamber has referred to Pai as “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/meet-the-internet-s-friend-ajit-pai">the internet’s friend</a>.” What the Chamber really means is that Pai is the corporate lobbyist’s friend. Dismantling net neutrality regulations, whether directly or indirectly, serves only to benefit a very narrow set of corporate interests, while it <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/11/the-conservative-case-for-net-neutrality/382650/" title="">hurts just about everyone else who uses the internet</a>. Once again, the Chamber reveals its true concern is not the growth of the economy as a whole, but the financial benefits it can secure for its giant corporate members.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) AjitPai ChamberofCommerce CorporatePower FederalCommunicationsCommission Internet NetNeutrality Telecoms U.S.ChamberofCommerce USChamberofCommerce _1684222 Wed, 26 Jul 2017 19:16:22 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/7/21/1682832/-House-Budget-Gift-to-U-S-Chamber-at-the-Expense-of-Average-Americans <p>If there was any doubt left in our mind (there wasn’t) that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is at the helm of the Trump administration’s sinking ship, the House Republicans’ <a href="https://budget.house.gov/budgets/fy18/" title="">budget proposal</a>, released yesterday, certainly cleared that up. The “Building a Better America” budget proposal calls for significant cuts to public services while giving major tax handouts to the wealthy. While the budget seems to make cuts across all portfolios, there are three particular ones in which the Chamber is well versed in deregulating: financial reform, the safety net, medical malpractice reforms, and tax reform.</p> <p>“Building a Better America” assumes adoption of the Financial CHOICE Act, a sweeping Wall Street deregulation bill that the Chamber has been <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/us-chamber-letter-the-financial-choice-act-2017">lobbying</a> in support of. The CHOICE Act (or as we like to call it, the “Wrong Choice Act”) would cripple the CFPB, something the Chamber has <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-cfpb-republicans-20150723-column.html">longed to destroy</a> since it first came to be. What does the Chamber have against the CFPB? Easy. The CFBP works to protect consumers from unsavory and sometimes illegal behavior by the big financial institutions, many of which the Chamber represents. The CHOICE Act also repeals the <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/volcker-rule-summary-3305905">Volcker Rule</a>, a piece of legislation the Chamber loves to hate. The Volcker Rule ensures that banks refrain from engaging in speculative trading with investors’ money and brings them back to the regular business of banking, which reduces the chance of repeating the 2007 financial crisis. Much like with the rest of the CHOICE Act, the Chamber and the Big Banks are <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/032917_thomas_quaadman_testimony_to_hfs.pdf">anti-Volcker Rule</a> because it confines Wall Street’s ability to make short term profits that become big bonuses for executives.</p> <p>Next up, the safety net. The Chamber has a long history of aggressively <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/23/1636984/-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-GOP-s-Best-and-Oldest-Ally-in-the-War-on-Safety-Net">lobbying against</a> Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The budget proposal would cut funding for Medicare by <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2017/07/18/435981/8-ways-house-republicans-budget-will-harm-working-families-pay-millionaire-tax-cuts/">$487 billion over 10 years</a>, while also cutting Medicaid and other health care programs by $1.5 trillion over the same amount of time. Unlike President Trump, the Chamber has never promised to spare Social Security from cuts. One specific cut to social security that the budget proposes is Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), something the Chamber has long tried to <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/social-security-disability-fund-has-two-years-left">reform</a>. The House budget contains <a href="https://budget.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Summary-Tables-1.pdf">$4 billion</a> worth of cuts to social security, and while these cuts may be music to the Chamber’s ears, it is a devastating proposal for the average American.</p> <p>Republicans would be remiss to pass up the opportunity to make outlandish claims regarding the practice of defensive medicine.  The proposal includes “reforms” outlined in the “Protecting Access to Care Act of 2017,” a bill the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform <a href="http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/resource/us-house-passes-medical-liability-reform-bill">lobbied heavily</a> on behalf of. The Chamber and its health care lobby allies assert <a href="http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/issues/medical-liability" title="">preposterous estimates</a> on the prevalence of defensive medicine and the costs incurred by it, despite those claims being <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/medical-malpractice-scapegoat-report.pdf">debunked</a>. The budget seeks to restrict patients’ rights in an effort to do the bidding of the health care lobby, something the Chamber is familiar <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/06/25/busted-health-insurers-secretly-spent-huge-to-defeat-health-care-reform-while-pretending-to-support-obamacare/#2069539b4248">with</a>.</p> <p>Lastly, tax reform. The tax reform proposals <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/5/25/1665935/-Who-s-Behind-Trump-Tax-Reform-The-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce">championed by the Chamber</a> and largely adopted in the proposed House budget are made up of comprehensive tax giveaway to the wealthy and a payback scheme for the Chamber’s big business allies. The Chamber has <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/getting-tax-reform-done-and-done-right">said before</a> of tax reform that it “will be at the table throughout the process—because anyone who isn’t at the table risks ending up on the menu.” And, based on this budget, they weren’t joking around. The House Republican budget calls for lowering the corporate tax rate and downplays the importance of the tax, given that it “actually raises relatively little revenue.” The Chamber has long <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-taxes-business-spending-20170501-htmlstory.html" title="">championed</a> reducing the tax rate on business income. And while conservative rhetoric may try to push the narrative that taxing corporations raises little revenue, the truth is that the Chamber/Trump/GOP tax reform proposal could cost as much as an estimated <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/implications-what-we-know-and-dont-know-about-president-trumps-tax-plan">$7.8 trillion over ten years</a>, disproportionately benefitting high-income households.</p> <p>The House budget proposal is nothing more than a Chamber-dreamed windfall for corporations and Wall Street. Building a Better America or Building a Better Corporate America? Based on what we see in this budget blueprint, it is evident which the Chamber has been lobbying for.  </p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" title="">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) Budget Chamber GOP HouseGOP trump USChamber _1682832 Fri, 21 Jul 2017 19:12:59 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/7/12/1680121/-Conservatives-work-to-shield-Chamber-from-investors-calls-for-transparency <p><span>As President Trump pulls America out of the Paris climate agreement and Congress threatens to take health care away from </span><a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52849"><span><span>22 million people</span></span></a><span>, it is becoming more and more clear that conservatives are making policy choices intended to scratch the backs of big companies and the wealthy few rather than protect regular Americans. Beyond the usual pandering to corporate interests, some conservatives are taking this a step further and using the critical federal budget process to push dangerous policy, sneaking in additional “poison pill riders” to this must pass funding legislation.</span></p> <p><span>Recently, the House Appropriations subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government released its budget draft, which includes a harmful policy rider that stops the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from working on or finalizing a rule that would require corporations to tell shareholders (the owners of their companies) how they spend money to influence politics.</span></p> <p><span>Corporate attempts to influence our politics are nothing new, but since the Supreme Court’s decision in <em>Citizens United</em> corporations are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence the outcomes of our elections. One way they do this is through trade associations like the National Restaurant Association, the Business Roundtable, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Many of the country’s largest companies do not disclose what they pay to their trade associations that both spend money directly on elections, and spend money lobbying on behalf of their corporate members. </span></p> <p><span>The use of this secret channel is particularly troublesome because these trade associations oftentimes have a smoke and mirrors approach to policy. The Chamber, the nation’s largest business lobby, claims to work in the interests of small businesses when in reality it the Chamber uses its $275 million budget to push the biggest corporate agendas on issues almost every issue from the environment to worker safety to financial regulation to healthcare. Similarly, the Chamber claims to be bipartisan and yet it spent $29 million in election spending </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/2016_12_5_the_republican_party_and_the_chamber_of_secrets_final.pdf" title=""><span>exclusively benefiting Republican candidates</span></a><span> in 2016</span><span>.</span></p> <p><span>Many of the companies funding the Chamber take public stances in opposition to the Chamber’s, but the lack of information about the Chamber’s monetary gifts provides those companies with political cover. Disney, for instance, has committed to fighting climate change by pledging to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2020. It signed the American Business Act on Climate Pledge in support of the Paris climate agreement and took the Caring for Climate pledge as part of the United Nations Global Compact. Unfortunately, however, Disney also funds the Chamber, which actively lobbies against climate-friendly policies and funded the </span><a href="http://accf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/170316-NERA-ACCF-Full-Report.pdf" title=""><span>very study</span></a><span> that President Trump cited in his rational for exiting the Paris Agreement. This secret Chamber funding led shareholders to file a resolution at Disney this spring asking the company to disclose its payments to the Chamber in addition to any other money it spends on lobbying. </span></p> <p><span>Unfortunately, Disney isn’t the only company whose alleged corporate values are at odds with the aggressive work of the Chamber. Shareholders also filed the same lobbying disclosure resolution at UnitedHealth Group this year citing the company’s undisclosed funding of the Chamber. In just 15 months between 2009 and 2010, the Chamber spent more than </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/06/25/busted-health-insurers-secretly-spent-huge-to-defeat-health-care-reform-while-pretending-to-support-obamacare/#483c847b4248" title=""><span>$102 million dollars</span></a><span> opposing the ACA. This money was funneled to the Chamber by the big health insurers. Among the companies to </span><a href="http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/news/entry/insurers-gave-u.s.-chamber-86-million-used-to-oppose-obamas-health-law/"><span>supply</span></a><span> the funding was UnitedHealth, who unlike its peers, Aetna, Anthem, CIGNA and Humana, does not disclose trade association memberships. </span></p> <p><span>In <em>Citizens United</em> the Supreme Court made the assumption that disclosure would be the norm, allowing shareholders and customers to “hold corporations and elected officials </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/citizens-united-anthony-kennedy_us_5637c481e4b0631799134b92" title=""><span><span>accountable</span></span></a><span> for their positions and supporters.” In reality, many companies still spend money on elections and on lobbying in secret, and shareholders deserve to access to details about this spending. </span><span>In an era where corporate donors dominate our elections and our President is overly amenable to the Chamber's corporate agenda, shareholders and the American public need all the transparency they can get. If Republicans have their way, investors will be kept in the dark and trade associations will continue to push for Big Business policies at the expense of everyday Americans.</span></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) AffordableCareAct CitizensUnited Disclosure Disney GOP HouseGOP Lobbying ParisAgreement SEC trump UnitedHealth USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1680121 Wed, 12 Jul 2017 20:11:34 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/7/12/1679982/-CFPB-Arbitration-Rule-Chamber-Sides-with-Wall-Street-Over-Consumers-Small-Businesses <p>The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wasted no time in opposing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's <a href="http://qz.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?key=-1&amp;url_num=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.consumerfinance.gov%2Fabout-us%2Fblog%2Fweve-issued-new-rule-arbitration-help-groups-people-take-companies-court%2F" title="">final arbitration rule</a> that was released Monday, criticizing it as a “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-cfpb-arbitration-rule-prime-example-agency-gone-rogue" title="">brazen</a>” act.</p> <p>Too often, consumers are blocked by “rip-off clauses”, a fine-print trick that banks and predatory lenders use to evade accountability and conceal illegal behavior by prohibiting individuals and small businesses from having their day in court and forcing them into opaque arbitration proceedings. Under arbitration, the corporation gets to pick the arbiter who will hear the case. As such, arbitration inherently stacks the deck against consumers and small businesses and oftentimes serves as <span>a get-out-of-jail-free card for rogue financial institutions,</span> leaving consumers defrauded and without any other legal recourse.</p> <p>The newly issued rule would restore consumers’ right to band together in class-action lawsuits against financial firms. Why is this so important? Consider the case of a bank that improperly charges millions of account holders a $50 fee. There are few people who will expend the time and energy necessary to litigate a $50 dispute on their own in arbitration. But this same $50 fee, improperly levied on millions of customers may generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the bank. Class actions allow consumers to band together and pursue their small dollar claims in court without having to invest time or money. By prohibiting class actions and requiring individual arbitration, rogue banks and other corporations essentially provide themselves with impunity to repeatedly abuse consumers. These giant corporations understand that without the possibility of suing in a class action, the vast majority of consumers will just eat the small fees they may improperly charge.</p> <p>It should come as no surprise that the rule has the Chamber and its Wall Street friends on red-alert, given that it has the potential cost the industry <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/business/dealbook/morning-agenda-cfpb-arbitration-class-action-lawsuits.html">billions</a>. The Chamber has lobbied extensively <a href="http://time.com/money/4454932/mandatory-arbitration-cfpb-rule/">against</a> limits on the “rip-off clause,” hoping instead that corporations will be able to continue ripping off consumers with latitude, as we saw in last year’s Wells Fargo fake account <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/business/wells-fargo-asks-court-to-force-customers-to-arbitration-in-fake-accounts-cases.html?_r=0">scandal</a>. The Wells Fargo case also illustrates another huge advantage of arbitration for corporations. Because arbitration takes place in secret rather than in open court, in the rare instances where a consumer arbitrates a dispute against a corporation, it helps the corporation prevent its alleged misconduct from <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/25/investing/wells-fargo-lawsuit-forced-arbitration/index.html">becoming public</a>, which might trigger investigations by prosecutors or regulatory agencies.</p> <p>In a joint statement by Lisa Rickard, the president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) and David Hirschmann, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, the Chamber asserts its view that the rule has a “complete disregard for the will of Congress, the administration, the American people, and even the courts” and that it ignores “the practical benefits of arbitration, as compared to the court system.”</p> <p>Sure, the rule may go against the wishes of the current administration, one that is backed by <a href="http://corporatecabinet.org/">corporate interests</a> who stand to benefit from forced arbitration, but it most certainly does not “disregard” the American people, “or even the courts” for that matter. In fact, it aims to allow people to have their day in court! What the Chamber fails to mention in its scathing critique of the rule, is that more often than not, the “practical benefits” of arbitration fall only upon the big banks and other huge corporations, and not on everyday consumers and small businesses who are too often taken advantage of by corporations intent upon padding their bottom lines through questionable means.</p> <p>In addition to the Chamber’s <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-cfpb-arbitration-rule-prime-example-agency-gone-rogue" title="">statement</a>, the ILR's Senior Vice President of Legal Reform Policy, Matt Webb, said in an <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/07/11/536595586/new-rule-clears-the-way-for-more-class-action-lawsuits-against-banks?utm_medium=Email&amp;utm_source=ExactTarget&amp;utm_campaign=&amp;utm_content=" title="">NPR interview</a> that the CFPB's actions are "an example of an agency largely going rogue, doing the bidding of the plaintiffs' trial bar and doing something that's going to be harmful to consumers as well as the business community."</p> <p>It seems perplexing, even shocking, that the Chamber is feigning concern for consumers given its history of lobbying on behalf of nearly every industry, often at the expense of average Americans. The Chamber also seems to overlook the fact the CFPB spent three years compiling and analyzing data, resulting in the most comprehensive empirical <a href="http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201503_cfpb_arbitration-study-report-to-congress-2015.pdf">study</a> ever done on arbitration, requested by lawmakers, demonstrates that forced arbitration effectively wipes out consumer claims.</p> <p>Not only is the Chamber lobbying against this rule, much like it has lobbied for legislation to restrict individual and small business access to the courts in the past, it also goes to court itself to argue that it should be more difficult for others to exercise this same fundamental right. In fact, the Chamber went to court to argue that others should be denied this same right over <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber_litigation_report_part_1.pdf" title="">100 times</a> during a recent three year period.  How’s that for hypocrisy?</p> <p>What’s more, in recent years, the Chamber has involved itself in class action cases on behalf of BP, Goldman Sachs, Corinthian Colleges, and a boatload of other corporate bad actors. Should we still be taking their feigned concern over how this rule effects consumers seriously?</p> <p>Now, the Chamber has vowed to do whatever it can to keep consumers from having their day in court, whether by suing the bureau once the arbitration rule becomes final  or by lobbying Republicans to repeal the law using the Congressional Rule Act (CRA).</p> <p>Let’s be clear about what the Chamber’s crusade in favor of “rip-off clauses” is really about: corporate impunity. The Chamber is once again seeking to make it harder for individuals and small businesses to use the civil justice system to hold corporations and financial institutions accountable for wrongdoing. Forced arbitration shields the Chamber’s Wall Street and big business allies from accountability for anti-consumer practices, thereby encouraging unsavory business practices by allowing violations to go unchecked.  The Chamber has shown time and time again that it is neither the voice for small business or consumers, and its unflagging efforts to restrict access to the courts are par for the course. The Chamber may have claimed that the CFPB went rogue, but it and the big banks it represents are the real rogue actors in this story.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) arbitration CFPB Chamber Ripoffclause USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1679982 Wed, 12 Jul 2017 13:39:52 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/7/7/1678424/-Fourth-of-July-or-Christmas-in-July-Policy-Riders-are-Big-Gift-to-the-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce <p>Just before Congress escaped town for the Fourth of July recess, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee released its draft fiscal year 2018 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations <a href="https://appropriations.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bills-115hr-sc-ap-fy2018-fservices-financialservicesandgeneralgovernment.pdf">bill</a>. The FSGG appropriations bill provides annual funding for the U.S. Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and many other important agencies.</p> <p>This year, however, the bill is packed chock full of ideological policy riders that have nothing to with funding the agencies the bill is supposed to provide for, and everything to do with pleasing the House majority’s corporate masters at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. By tucking these policy riders into must-pass legislation, the House leadership ensures that they have a better chance of becoming law than they would if they were forced to stand on their own (highly dubious) merits.</p> <p>It may be the Fourth of July holiday week, but the release of the draft FSGG appropriations bill is likely to have been celebrated like Christmas in July in the marble hallways of the Chamber. The draft bill provides the Chamber with a veritable avalanche of presents, probably in response to the <a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/2016_12_5_the_republican_party_and_the_chamber_of_secrets_final.pdf">avalanche of money</a> the Chamber has bestowed upon GOP candidates for Congress.</p> <p>The biggest gift of all to the Chamber is the provision of the draft bill that would <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/campaign/340517-time-to-get-corporate-america-to-be-honest-about-political#.WVp_CG70B9g.facebook">prevent</a> the SEC from developing a rule that would require publicly traded companies to disclose their political spending to investors, including donations to politically active trade associations like the Chamber. The secrecy-obsessed Chamber has long <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/letter-fiscal-year-2017-financial-services-and-general-government-appropriations-bill-0">lobbied</a> against such a rule. It has even <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2697724/U-S-Chamber-Letter.pdf">reached out</a> to member companies to urge them against <em>voluntarily</em> disclosing such information despite the fact that more than 1.2 million investors (retail and institutional) and members of the public have called for it.</p> <p>If the policy rider prohibiting the development of a political spending disclosure rule qualifies as the proverbial new car in the garage on Christmas morning, then the rider eliminating the financial independence of the CFPB qualifies as the proverbial first class tickets to Paris for the Chamber and its friends on Wall Street. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-cfpb-republicans-20150723-column.html">Fighting</a> the existence of a strong, independent CFPB has been a lodestar for the Chamber. Why does the Chamber hate the CFPB so much? Probably because the CFBP is doing its job, working to protect consumers from unscrupulous and sometimes illegal behavior by the big financial institutions whose interests the Chamber represents. Indeed, the CFPB has obtained <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/">$11.8 billion</a> in relief for over 29 million consumers. That’s $11.8 billion that wasn’t available for executive bonuses and stock buy-backs.</p> <p>Unfortunately, bringing the CFPB under the heal of the very politicians who are most dependent upon corporate cash for their reelections isn’t the only policy rider in the draft FSGG appropriations bill that’s a giveaway to the Chamber’s Wall Street patrons. The draft bill contains a separate rider that would repeal the <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/volcker-rule-summary-3305905">Volcker Rule</a>. The Volcker Rule prevents banks from engaging in speculative trading with depositors’ money, thereby reducing the chances of another financial crisis. Of course, the Chamber and the Big Banks <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/032917_thomas_quaadman_testimony_to_hfs.pdf">don’t like</a> the Volcker Rule because it limits Wall Street’s ability to make short term profits that in turn produce big bonuses for executives.</p> <p>As if all this weren’t enough, the draft FSGG appropriations bill contains another yuge gift for the Chamber and its financial services industry backers. The draft bill contains a rider which would halt a CFPB rule restricting the use of forced arbitration clauses buried in the fine print of consumer financial contracts. The Chamber has long campaigned <a href="http://time.com/money/4454932/mandatory-arbitration-cfpb-rule/">against</a> limits on this “rip-off” clause. Blocking this rule would essentially allow corporations to rip off consumers with impunity, as the Wells Fargo fake account scandal <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/business/wells-fargo-asks-court-to-force-customers-to-arbitration-in-fake-accounts-cases.html?_r=0">litigation</a> has shown.</p> <p>While it is undoubtedly depressing that our elected officials, who are supposed to represent the people, are instead finding new and ever more creative opportunities to shower gifts on their corporate benefactors, we still have time to make our voices heard. The House FSGG appropriations bill hasn’t yet passed through the full appropriations committee. So call your congressperson and tell him or her that you object to all of these harmful policy riders whose only purpose is to please the Chamber and the giant corporations intent upon buying our democracy.</p> <p>Because if we don’t stand up and make our voices heard, then they very well may wind up singing some rather special <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/29/1615427/-The-Chamber-of-Commerce-s-12-Days-of-Christmas">Christmas carols</a> at the Chamber this summer.</p> <p><em>If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber and its reactionary agenda, you can always visit us on <a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a> or follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) Appropriations arbitration Budget CFPB ChamberofCommerce CleanBudget Congress ConsumerFinancialProtectionBureau forcedarbitration FourthofJuly GOP House NoRiders Riders SEC SecuritiesandExchangeCommission U.S.ChamberofCommerce USChamberofCommerce VolckerRule _1678424 Fri, 07 Jul 2017 13:31:27 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/6/26/1675308/-An-Open-Letter-to-Allstate-CEO-Tom-Wilson-Newly-Elected-Chairman-of-the-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce <p>Dear Tom Wilson,</p> <p>Congratulations on <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/allstate-s-tom-wilson-new-chamber-chairman-driven-purpose" title="">your new role</a> as Chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Because this is an important position, one that has the potential to steer the direction the Chamber takes throughout the next year, we wanted to remind you of an op-ed you wrote last September for the <em>Washington</em> <em>Post </em>titled, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-corporations-can-be-a-force-for-good/2016/09/29/08e99268-7ac4-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html?tid=a_inl&amp;utm_term=.aac6954afd2f" title="">How corporations can be a force for good</a>.”</p> <p>In your piece, you call upon companies to use their influence to promote policies that benefit the labor force and the planet, while still yielding profits. In the months since your September op-ed, President Trump was elected and took office, and he now has begun rolling back a whole raft of policies that were aimed at protecting workers and the environment. As such, there’ve been no shortages of opportunities for companies to, in your well-timed words, “be a force for good,” by using their influence to oppose the rollback of these policies.</p> <p>Let’s start with Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. Allstate has expressed concern over the impacts of climate change, signing onto the 2013 <a href="http://tools.ceres.org/declaration/images/climate-declaration-master" title="">CERES Climate Declaration</a>, as well as committing to <a href="http://corporateresponsibility.allstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Allstate-Climate-Change-Statement_-Formated_111016.pdf">reduce energy use</a>. While we haven’t heard from Allstate, we have heard a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/business/climate-change-tesla-corporations-paris-accord.html">chorus of business voices</a> disavowing President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. From Facebook, to Google, to Tesla, companies used their influence to defend environmental responsibility, because like you said, “<span>fully integrating social good into a corporation’s purpose is also good for business.”</span></p> <p>In light of your own support for action to combat climate change as well as the support of much of the business community, Americans and shareholders want to know what will you do to reverse the Chamber’s anti-climate policies? It is the Chamber that funded the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/kevin-steinberger/chamber-inflates-costs-ignores-benefits-climate-action">debunked</a> <a href="http://accf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/170316-NERA-ACCF-Full-Report.pdf">study</a> that Trump used to justify his decision to withdraw from the Paris accord. What’s more, the Chamber is one of the loudest and most influential voices <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/us/obama-unveils-plan-to-sharply-limit-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html?_r=0">lobbying and litigating</a> against action on climate change. Are you not concerned, in your new role leading the Chamber – the very entity that lauds itself as the voice for business – that it is out of step with some of the country’s other largest corporations? “Corporations should be encouraged and rewarded for stepping up to solve society’s problems,” you wrote, and in present times, it would seem that the well-being of our planet is one of society’s more pressing problems. What will you do to get the Chamber to change direction and step up to solve the global crisis of climate change?</p> <p>It isn’t just climate policy, however, that has companies at odds with the Chamber. At Allstate, you raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour because, in your words, “it was good business to do so” (something many others <a href="https://piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/higher-wages-low-income-workers-lead-higher-productivity">agree on</a>) and because “more prosperous communities with better-educated workers and customers also provide a much better economic and business climate.” Why then, does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which you now chair, <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/labor?tab=position#timeline">oppose</a> raising the minimum wage <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/1/1639145/-The-Chamber-s-Never-Ending-War-on-Workers">every chance it get</a>s, while also continuing its fight against overtime pay? As chairman of the Chamber, what will you do to reverse the Chamber’s ferocious opposition to raising the minimum wage and implementing the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/WHD/overtime/final2016/">overtime rule</a>?</p> <p>What’s more, <a href="https://www.allstate.com/about/about.aspx">57 percent</a> of your employees at Allstate are women, many of them with management roles. While Allstate’s commitment to hiring and promoting women is to be commended, are you aware that the Chamber <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/4/1650031/-The-Chamber-s-War-on-Women">consistently lobbies against</a> policies that promote workplace equity for women? What will you do to reverse the Chamber’s opposition to pro-women, pro-family policies such as equal pay, paid leave and banning pregnancy discrimination?</p> <p>If you are serious about corporations being a force for good, then you must, in your capacity as Chamber chairman, ensure that the Chamber reverses course on all of these issues. And if under your leadership, the leading voice of Big Business in Washington continues to use its megaphone to be the loudest advocate for policies that harm workers, women and the planet, it seems that your own advice would leave you with no choice but to step down from your position as chairman.  Because after all, in your words, “social good is good for business.” If the Chamber won’t reverse course and support social good, then it isn’t doing good for business. Neither for your own company’s good, nor those of many of your peers.  </p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>The U.S. Chamber Watch Project</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>If you’d like to learn more about Public Citizen’s Chamber Watch project, you can always visit us on</span></span></span></span></em><em> </em><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title=""><em><span>www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</span></em></a><em> </em><em><span><span><span><span>or follow us on</span></span></span></span></em><em> </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/"><em><span>Facebook</span></em></a><em> </em><em><span><span><span><span>and</span></span></span></span></em><em> </em><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" title=""><em><span>Twitter</span></em></a><em><span><span><span><span>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) Allstate ParisAgreement USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1675308 Mon, 26 Jun 2017 14:05:59 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/6/21/1673876/-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-Spent-Over-16-Million-Supporting-Authors-of-Senate-Healthcare-Bill <p>Since the beginning of the debate around passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has worked to undermine efforts to expand access to healthcare for tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans.</p> <p>In just 15 months between 2009 and 2010, the Chamber spent more than <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/06/25/busted-health-insurers-secretly-spent-huge-to-defeat-health-care-reform-while-pretending-to-support-obamacare/#5d611fe4248a">$102 million dollars</a>, funneled to it by the big health insurers, on opposing the ACA. Fast forward to 2017, and we see that the Chamber has far from given up its crusade against the ACA, and recently <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/us-chamber-supports-american-health-care-act">urged</a> the House to pass the American Health Care Act (AHCA) which would repeal the ACA. If the ACA were repealed, it would likely result in 23 million Americans losing their health insurance and would weaken a host of important protections such as the requirement that health insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions.  </p> <p>Now, with 13 Republican senators crafting a Senate version of the AHCA <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/jun/20/7-questions-about-senate-health-care-bill-and-tran/">in secret</a>, we wanted to see to what level the Chamber has the ear of these powerful senators. It should perhaps come as no surprise that the Chamber, the <a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/2016_12_5_the_republican_party_and_the_chamber_of_secrets_final.pdf">largest non-disclosing outside spender</a> in 2016 congressional races, spent more than $16 million between 2012 and 2016 supporting the campaigns of ten of the 13 senators authoring the bill.  </p> <div class="table-wrapper"> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>Money Spent by U.S. Chamber to support Senate Health Care Bill Authors</caption> <thead> <tr> <th> <p>Senator</p> </th> <th> <p>Money Spent By chamber, 2012-2016</p> </th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>Lamar Alexander (r-tn)</th> <td>$1,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Mike lee (r-ut)</th> <td>$1,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>john thune (r-sd)</th> <td>$3,500</td> </tr> <tr> <th>tom cotton (R-AR)</th> <td>$5,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>John Cornyn (r-tx)</th> <td>$7,500</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Orrin Hatch (r-ut)</th> <td>$95, 140</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Mitch Mcconnell (r-KY)</th> <td>$1, 579, 620</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Cory gardner (r-co)</th> <td>$3, 734, 275</td> </tr> <tr> <th>rob portman (r-OH)</th> <td>$4, 616, 326</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Pat Toomey (R-PA)</th> <td>$6, 116, 150</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Total</th> <td>$16, 159, 511</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <p>_{<em><span>(Senate authors of the secret healthcare bill that were not supported by the Chamber are Cruz, Enzi, and Barrasso)</span></em>}</p> </div> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p>With powerful special interests groups like the Chamber spending eye-popping sums of money to elect some of these senators, is it any wonder that reports about the secret senate Republican plans for health care reform show that like the House version, it will prioritize the interests of the big health insurers over those of the American people? The Chamber’s longstanding opposition to the ACA and its support of the AHCA are just another example of the trade group putting profits before people.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" title="">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) AffordableCareAct AHCA Obamacare ProtectOurCare SaveOurCare Trumpcare USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1673876 Wed, 21 Jun 2017 18:51:00 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/6/7/1669709/-U-S-Chamber-Say-Au-Revoir-to-the-Paris-Agreement-and-Bonjour-to-Big-Oil <p>The Chamber has been a <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/two-big-problems-president-obama-s-paris-climate-efforts" title="">longtime critic</a> of the Paris Agreement and a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/us/obama-unveils-plan-to-sharply-limit-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html" title="">leading opponent</a> of action on climate change for as long as it’s been around.</p> <p>In 2016, the Chamber <a href="https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-114-SY-WState-SEule-20160202.pdf">testified</a> before Congress in opposition to the Paris Agreement, despite the fact that <a href="https://www.eenews.net/assets/2017/03/20/document_pm_03.pdf">nearly half</a> of the Chamber’s board members have taken public positions supporting efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Now, with a Republican President seemingly low on policy ideas, the Chamber has been able to gain tremendous influence over the administration’s energy policy.</p> <p>Let’s start with President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, a decision he justified by citing a “study,” which claimed that implementing the Paris Agreement would result in large job losses. The Chamber’s Institute for 21^st Century Energy was one of just two sponsors of this sham <a href="http://accf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/170316-NERA-ACCF-Full-Report.pdf">study</a>, which, much like many of the other alternative facts used to support decisions made by the Trump administration, has since been the subject of some well-deserved bad press.  </p> <p>As <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/kevin-steinberger/chamber-inflates-costs-ignores-benefits-climate-action">NRDC</a> (and now several <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15727398/donald-trump-paris-climate-change-agreement-us-pulls-out-million-jobs" title="">others</a>) have pointed out, the report’s methodology is severely flawed, featuring unrealistically inflated job loss numbers. What’s more, the study also ignores the vast potential of energy efficiency, which could make reducing emissions cheaper and easier, all while <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/mike-pence-carrier-indiana-232095" title="">keeping manufacturing jobs</a> in the U.S., and improving the <a href="http://trade.gov/press/publications/newsletters/ita_1009/energy_1009.asp" title="">competitiveness</a> of American industry.</p> <p>In addition to providing Trump with a rationale to pull out of the Paris Agreement, the Chamber is also one of the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Clean Power Plan. It has opposed action on climate change and clean energy solutions at nearly every turn. The Chamber has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) more than any other government agency, <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/chamber_litigation_report_part_1.pdf" title="">suing the agency</a> 15 times during a recent three year period, and filing amicus briefs against the EPA in an additional 11 cases. The Chamber also called for a “<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/25/nation/na-climate-trial25" title="">Scopes Monkey Trial of the 21^st Century</a>” to put climate science on trial.  </p> <p>Given the Chamber’s self-proclaimed role as the voice of small business and champion of economic growth, the Chamber’s staunch opposition to limiting (GHG) emissions is completely nonsensical. Green businesses and renewable energy companies (many of them small) have a track record of <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/energy-department-analysis-loan-guarantee-program-launched-utility-scale-photovoltaic-solar" title="">innovation</a> and <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/01/27/solar-wind-renewable-jobs/" title="">job creation</a>, and are drivers of <a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2017/01/11/states-clean-energy-creating-jobs-economic-growth/">economic growth</a>. Then again, the Chamber’s claims to represent small business are about as credible as Trump’s claim that he was “<a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-nation/2017/06/01/I-was-elected-to-represent-the-citizens-of-Pittsburgh-not-Paris-Trump-to-pull-U-S-out-of-Paris-climate-agreement/stories/201706010198" title="">elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.</a>” (Reminder: <a href="https://twitter.com/billpeduto/status/870369217031397377" title="">the Pittsburgh mayor disagrees </a>.)</p> <p>Of course, given the biggest companies that fund the Chamber, it’s unsurprising that it would ignore clean energy solutions and the dangers of fossil fuels to the detriment of the other smaller business members of the trade association. The Chamber is collectively receiving <a href="https://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/sites/default/files/resources/insidejobcai.pdf" title="">millions of dollars</a> from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Conoco Philips, Occidental Petroleum, Philips 66, Hess, Apache, Tesoro Petroleum, Marathon Oil, Marathon Petroleum, Noble Energy, and Peabody Energy. And those are just the companies we know about! In addition, executives from ConocoPhillips and Sempra Energy sit on the Chamber’s board of directors. From repeatedly suing the EPA to undermining the Paris Agreement, <span>the Chamber plays a key role in doing the dirty work for some of the world’s deadliest and most environmentally destructive companies. </span></p> <p>While the Chamber has remained largely silent in the wake of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, we’ve heard an outpouring of opposition from U.S. business leaders. All those that made statements disavowed the decision, and several, including Disney’s Bob Iger, have stepped down from the Trump’s Business Council. What was distinctly missing from these business leaders’ statements, however, was any acknowledgement of the connection between the money these companies give to the Chamber, and Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.</p> <p>Membership dues and donations from companies like Disney, Gap, and Facebook (the very ones that publicly disagreed with the decision) are what makes it possible for the Chamber to fund things like the study Trump used to justify his decision to withdraw, as well as all the other anti-climate lobbying and litigation in which the Chamber engages.  While it’s nice to see business leaders voice support for action on climate change, it’s difficult to take their statements seriously until they they stop funding the anti-climate Chamber.</p> <p>Want to make your voice heard on this issue? Wondering what you can do to help? Join our #DropTheChamber campaign and sign our <a href="https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/sign-the-petition-to-corporate-execs-stop-funding-pro-trump-us-chamber-of-commerce?source=Chamber201706_PC">petition</a> to the CEOs of Disney, Gap, and Pepsi and ask them to stop funding the anti-climate U.S. Chamber of Commerce!</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title="">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" title="">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce ClimateChange GlobalWarming Paris parisaccord ParisAgreement trump USChamber _1669709 Wed, 07 Jun 2017 19:53:33 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/5/25/1665935/-Who-s-Behind-Trump-Tax-Reform-The-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce <p>Tax reform has been a hot topic since Donald Trump was elected president. Big corporations and the wealthy have been salivating over the prospect of a major tax cut ever since Trump released his “<a href="https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/trump-tax-reform.pdf" title="">Tax reform that will make America Great Again”</a> (or for short #TRTWMAGA) plan during the campaign <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/26/news/economy/trump-tax-plan/" title="">and another plan</a> in April. Both of these plans are long on harmful policy ideas while being short on details, but they contain key assumptions that underpin Trump’s budget proposal released on May 23.  The House Republicans put forward a more comprehensive, but just as problematic, blueprint for tax reform in June of last year.</p> <p>Last week, the House Ways and Means committee held its first hearing of the year on comprehensive tax reform. It should come as no surprise that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been driving much of the narrative surrounding the GOP’s reform blueprint since it was so heavily skewed in favor of Big Business at the expense of average taxpayers. Prior to the hearing, in a <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/letter-chairman-brady-support-comprehensive-tax-reform" title="">letter</a> to Chairman Brady, the U.S. Chamber noted that “significant rate reductions for corporations and pass-through entities, expensing of capital purchases, an internationally competitive system for taxing foreign earnings, and simplification” are  meant by “tax reform” though all of those policies would damage, rather than reform our system.</p> <p>While the tax reform plan Trump campaigned on would give <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/publication/141541/options-to-reduce-the-taxation-of-pass-through-income.pdf" title="">trillion</a>s in tax breaks to the rich and large corporations, it is only briefly mentioned in his recent budget proposal, though it supplies much of the funding tradeoffs that “balance” the budget over 10 years. The components that <em>are</em> mentioned in the budget, however, stem from policy proposals championed by the Chamber, and can also be found in House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady’s and Speaker Ryan’s <a href="https://waysandmeans.house.gov/chairman-brady-delivers-remarks-u-s-chamber-commerce/">tax reform blueprint</a>. So, the GOP tax reform plan is really the Chamber’s tax reform plan, and it is designed to benefit its membership, which is made up of some of the richest corporations and individuals in our country.</p> <p>Below we detail some of the main ways in which the Chamber’s tax reform proposals would result in a major payday for wealthy individuals and corporations:</p> <p><strong>Death and Taxes: </strong>Both the Chamber and Trump wish to abolish the estate tax, which would represent a massive tax cut for the heirs of the very wealthiest families, and would cost <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/2000924-an-analysis-of-donald-trumps-revised-tax-plan.pdf" title="">$174 billion over the course of 10 years</a>. While we haven’t seen Trump’s tax returns and likely never will, we can safely assume that Trump’s heirs could gain hundreds of millions or even perhaps billions of dollars if the estate tax were to be repealed. The Chamber has been a <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/legacy/issues/econtax/files/THE%20ESTATE%20TAX%204.29.2011.pdf">staunch opponent</a> of the estate tax for years, claiming that it harms family businesses, though that’s <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/billionaires-bluff-estate-tax-report.pdf" title="">plainly not true</a>. In 2016, the individual exemption was $5.45 million, a pretty penny to inherit tax-free, and the Tax Policy Center Tax Policy Center <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/14/the-facts-about-the-estate-tax-and-farmers/?utm_term=.719fdc202c34">estimates</a> that “only 120 farms and small business, where at least half the assets are in farm or business assets, had to pay the estate tax in 2013”.</p> <p><strong>The Trump Loophole</strong>: Big businesses oftentimes masquerade as small businesses by organizing themselves as pass-through entities, a tactic used by hedge funds and real estate companies (<em>See</em>, Trump Organization LLC) to reduce their tax bills, costing the U.S. Treasury billions.  Trump’s proposed tax plan lowers the tax rate for business income from 35% to 15%, (referred to as the “<a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-tax-plan-pass-throughs-1090f8c9cc81">Trump Loophole</a>”) and would reduce taxes paid by wealthy recipients of “pass-through” business income by <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/publication/141541/options-to-reduce-the-taxation-of-pass-through-income.pdf">$2 trillion</a> over the course of 10 years. Reducing the tax rate on business income is something the Chamber is <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-taxes-business-spending-20170501-htmlstory.html">championing</a>. <strong> </strong></p> <p><strong>Reverse Robin Hood Health Care: </strong>The Chamber has long lead the fight to <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/key-vote-letter-hr-6079-repeal-obamacare-act" title="">repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA</a>), and has been a proponent of the <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-president-congratulates-house-passing-health-care-bill" title="">GOP’s (American Health Care Act) AHCA</a> . If the ACA is repealed, manufactures of prescription drugs and medical devices would see a decrease in taxes levied on their products, thus pharma supports repealing the ACA, despite the fact that with its expanded coverage more people will be able to afford care including drugs and devices. So repeal of the ACA, yet again, results in tax cuts for the wealthy, at the expense of everyday Americans. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that repeal of the ACA <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/business/tax-cuts-affordable-care-act-repeal.html?_r=0" title="">would deliver roughly $144 billion over the coming decade to those with incomes of $1 million or more</a>.</p> <p><strong>Conspicuously missing in the Chamber-Trump tax reform proposal? Any proposals that help average taxpayers by making corporations and wealthy pay their fair share: </strong>Eliminating<strong> </strong><a href="http://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/legacy/files/downloads_and_links/THP_15WaysFedBudget_Prop5.pdf">a $4 billion tax preference</a> that oil and gas companies receive (for which the Chamber <a href="http://polluterwatch.org/us-chamber-commerce" title="">lobbies</a>), repealing a loophole that <a href="https://www.reed.senate.gov/news/releases/reed-blumenthal-doggett-offer-bill-to-end-special-tax-exemptions-for-huge-ceo-bonuses">allows corporations</a> to deduct unlimited amounts of CEO-pay from their taxable income, supporting real corporate tax reform that would require profitable multinational companies like Apple to pay taxes on offshore profits, or instituting progressive new taxes like on Wall Street trades.</p> <p>The tax reform proposals championed by the Chamber and largely adopted by Trump, much like his newly released budget, are rigged for billionaires and big corporations- they constitute comprehensive tax giveaway to the superrich and a payback scheme for big business. The Chamber <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/getting-tax-reform-done-and-done-right">states</a> that it “will be at the table throughout the process—because anyone who isn’t at the table risks ending up on the menu.” If the Chamber can help it, average tax payers, many of whom voted for Donald Trump because they believed his promises to stand up for working people, will most definitely not be getting a seat at the table.</p> <p>Unfortunately, as Trump’s tax reform proposals yet again prove, it’s not the people’s agenda that he’s intent on implementing, but rather the Chamber’s agenda.  </p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title="">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" title="">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) GOP TaxReform trump USChamber _1665935 Thu, 25 May 2017 14:19:36 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/5/2/1658204/-The-Chamber-s-War-on-Workers-Comp-Time-Edition <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p>The new Republican Congress is only four months old, but it’s already shown that it cares far more about big corporations than the millions of Americans who work for them. This Congress has made the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s priorities its priorities, and this week, the House is set to vote on a bill that is the latest front in the <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/03/01/1639145/-The-Chamber-s-Never-Ending-War-on-Workers">Chamber’s War on Workers</a>.</p> <p>The deceptively named <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr1180" title="">Working Families Flexibility Act</a> (H.R. 1180/S. 801), introduced by Rep. Martha Roby (R – Ala.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R – Utah), and vigorously supported by the Chamber would allow employers to offer comp time as an alternative to time-and-a-half overtime pay when employees work more than 40 hours in a week.  H.R. 1180 would give even more power to employers over employees’ wages and working hours and further undermine workers’ ability to make ends meet, while doing nothing to increase flexibility for employees.</p> <p>Last month, Leonard Court testified in support of H.R. 1180 on behalf of the Chamber at a House Education and Workforce Committee Hearing. In <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/testimony/testimony-reviewing-hr-1180-the-working-families-flexibility-act-2017">his testimony</a>, Court stated, among many other false narratives, that “the decision to opt for comp time always rests with the employee, not the employer.” Unfortunately, this is not the case. H.R. 1180 further widens the power gap between an employee and her or her employer in a number of ways, making it a bill that Public Citizen opposes.</p> <p>Under the law, employers would have the final say as to whether to offer an employee comp time instead of overtime, and have the power to deny an employee’s request to use their comp time. For example, an employee who had opted to receive comp time for overtime hours worked could have enough hours saved up to take off work to care for a sick family member, but could still have her request denied by her boss.</p> <p>What’s more, there is no guarantee that an employee who does not accept comp time in lieu of time and half overtime pay would not find herself penalized with fewer hours and loss of overtime work. An employer who wants to avoid paying overtime may just stop asking employees that refuse comp time to work overtime and instead ask employees amenable to comp time to work extra hours. Such employees will see their earnings decline without any corresponding benefits if this bill becomes law.</p> <p>The Working Families Flexibility Act- or rather the Betrayal of Working Families Act- would be a step in the wrong direction for hourly, full-time workers as well as for <a href="http://smallbusiness.chron.com/salaried-exempt-vs-salaried-nonexempt-24213.html" title="">salaried, non-exempt workers</a> who are eligible for overtime pay. Instead of providing working people and their families with the time off and the financial stability they need to care for themselves and their loved ones, this “flexibility” bill offers forced choices and false promises.</p> <p>In addition to providing employers with even more power over their employees, H.R. 1180 increases the already not-insignificant incentive for employers to hire fewer people and instead rely on existing employees working overtime hours to get the job done. Under H.R. 1180, employers can “pay” for these overtime hours in future comp time, as opposed to having to pay for them immediately in wages. This in turn could mean that H.R. 1180 could result in less hiring, leaving more people unemployed.</p> <p>Workers <a href="http://www.epi.org/blog/workers-are-never-better-off-under-comp-time/">are never better off</a> if they accept comp time in lieu of overtime pay, but instead, can end up in a much worse situation with increased risk and delay in pay. The Fair Labor Standards Act is already in place to allow an employer to grant time off to employees who work overtime, and H.R. 1180 adds nothing new in this regard.</p> <p>This legislation is a classic case of Chamber smoke and mirrors. This bill would make it harder for people who need to work extra hours to pay their bills while providing no real guarantee of increased comp time. Its ultimate goal is to make labor cheaper for corporations. Of course, in so doing, it takes money out of the pockets of working people.</p> <p>It’s a shame that the GOP Congress has embraced another Chamber-touted windfall for big business. But why should we be surprised? After all, when the Chamber and other corporate interests <a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/2016_12_5_the_republican_party_and_the_chamber_of_secrets_final_0.pdf">spend big</a> on elections, we wind up with politicians who are beholden to corporations rather than the American people.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title="">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" title="">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch" title="">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) comptime GOP USChamber _1658204 Tue, 02 May 2017 17:34:57 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/24/1655787/-Do-Disney-Gap-and-Pepsi-Know-that-Their-Money-is-Being-Used-to-Fund-the-Trump-Agenda <p>How would you react if we told you that popular brands such as Disney, Pepsi, and Gap were funding the Trump agenda? That your hard-earned money was going to support Steve Bannon’s dreamed of “<a href="http://prospect.org/article/war-regulation-0">deconstruction of the administrative state</a>” which would wipe away a whole host of public protections?</p> <p>Surprised? Upset? Angry?</p> <p>Sorry, but it’s true. You see, it turns out that Disney, Pepsi, and Gap all fund Washington’s most powerful lobbying group, a group that is the <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/donald-trump-obama-legacy-215009">driving force</a> behind much of the Trump/GOP agenda.</p> <p>Which group is that? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce.</p> <p>The Chamber, backed by nearly <a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Gilded_Chamber.pdf">$275 million</a> in corporate money, is Washington’s proverbial <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/thomas-donohue-has-transformed-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-into-a-powerful-political-force-2012-4">800 pound gorilla</a>. On issues as diverse as climate, clean air, clean water, fossil fuel production and pipelines, worker safety, financial regulation, net neutrality, healthcare, overtime pay, and deregulation in general, Trump and the GOP are ripping entire pages from the Chamber’s playbook.</p> <p>Here at Public Citizen’s Chamber Watch project, we wanted to know which companies were funding the Chamber/Trump agenda, and we were particularly interested to know if companies that have made public commitments on climate, sustainability, clean water, and public health were funding the Chamber despite its long history of anti-climate, anti-environmental, pro-tobacco advocacy.</p> <p>Based on our review of publicly-available information as well as conversations with company officials, we learned that many companies that have – at least on paper – good policies on climate, sustainability, and/or public health are still funding the Chamber.</p> <p>And Disney, Pepsi, and Gap are among these companies.</p> <p>Today, a diverse coalition of more than 50 groups in more than a dozen countries asks <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/Disney%20Coalition%20Sign%20on%20Letter.pdf" target="_blank">Disney</a>, <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/Gap%20Coalition%20Sign%20on%20Letter.pdf" target="_blank">Gap</a>, and <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/Pepsi%20Coalition%20Sign%20on%20Letter.pdf" target="_blank">Pepsi </a>to stop funding a trade association that works against the environmental and public health policies these corporations claim to support. After all, how can we take these companies’ commitments on climate and public health seriously when they financially support an organization that is one of the <a href="http://www.energyxxi.org/us-chamber-files-lawsuit-challenging-epas-unprecedented-attempt-restructure-nations-electricity">lead plaintiffs</a> against the Clean Power Plan, constantly <a href="http://polluterwatch.org/us-chamber-commerce">lobbies</a> for the fossil fuel industry, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/business/international/us-chamber-works-globally-to-fight-antismoking-measures.html?_r=0">lobbies</a> in dozens of countries against anti-smoking laws and regulations?</p> <p>Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) have also <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/after-paris-us-chamber-members-reputations-are_us_5942f191e4b024b7e0df4a72" target="_blank">called on companies</a> to reconsider their relationship with the Chamber, saying, “purchasing a product even as small as a soda or a shirt should not result in customers unwillingly funding the Chamber’s anti-environment, anti-health agenda. It is time<span> </span><em>all</em><span> </span>Chamber members took a long, hard look at whether the Chamber truly represents their values. Consumers know that actions speak much louder than empty pledges and promises.” </p> <p>Already, companies such as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/2009/10/05/apple-chamber-commerce-business-washington-global-warming.html" title="">Apple and Pacific Gas &amp; Electric</a> have left the Chamber due to the Chamber’s anti-climate advocacy, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/07/cvs-health-leaves-u-s-chamber-of-commerce/">CVS</a> left as a result of the Chamber’s pro-tobacco work. It is time for Disney, Pepsi, and Gap to do the same. To continue to fund the Chamber would be to render meaningless the positive steps these companies have taken on climate and/or tobacco.</p> <p>What’s more, continued support of the Chamber poses a significant reputational risk to these companies, one that should concern their shareholders. Not only does membership in the Chamber render them <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7o4oMKbStE">complicit</a> in the Chamber’s anti-climate and pro-tobacco advocacy, it also associates them with an explicitly partisan group.</p> <p>In 2016, the Chamber formed an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/business-makes-senate-push-1464650851">alliance</a> with leading Republican luminaries to “Save the Senate” for the GOP. The Chamber ultimately wound up spending <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C90013145&amp;cycle=2016" title="">almost $30 million</a> in dark money on congressional races, <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/2016%2012%205%20The%20Republican%20Party%20and%20the%20Chamber%20of%20Secrets%20final.pdf" title="">more than any other group</a> that doesn’t disclose its donors. <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/2016%2012%205%20The%20Republican%20Party%20and%20the%20Chamber%20of%20Secrets%20final.pdf">All</a> of this money benefited Republican candidates.</p> <p>Like all companies, Disney, Pepsi, and Gap have ideologically diverse customer bases, and presumably many of their customers would be angry to learn that companies they patronize are supporting such a partisan group. In an era when more and more consumers are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/business/nordstrom-trump.html">linking</a> their purchasing decisions to a company’s political activities, it is especially risky for brands like Disney, Pepsi, and Gap to associate themselves with a hyper-partisan group such as the Chamber that is one of the architects of the Trump agenda.</p> <p>The Chamber’s agenda is bad for both public health and the health of the planet and its secret money partisan political spending is bad for the health of a transparent democracy. The time has come for Disney, Pepsi, and Gap to drop the Chamber.</p> <p><em><span>Sign the petition to tell Disney, Gap, and Pepsi it's not OK to fund the U.S. Chamber’s pro-Trump agenda <a href="http://bit.ly/2sxP6aN" target="_blank">here</a>! </span></em></p> <p><em>If you’d like to learn more about Public Citizen’s Chamber Watch project, you can always visit us on <a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a> or follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</em></p> <div> <hr class="msocomoff"> <div> <div><a name="_msocom_1"></a></div> </div> </div> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce Climate ClimateChange DarkMoney Disney DonaldTrump Gap moneyinpolitics Pepsi PepsiCo Recommended TheGap Tobacco trump U.S.ChamberofCommerce USChamberofCommerce _1655787 Mon, 24 Apr 2017 15:47:35 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/17/1652963/-The-Chamber-of-Commerce-s-Sorry-Record-on-Human-Rights <p>Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al Sisi took power in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/middleeast/egypt.html?hp">military coup</a> in 2013, overthrowing the country’s democratically elected president. Since that time, Sisi has embarked upon a violent crackdown on democratic freedoms. It is estimated that he has arrested and jailed more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sissis-teeming-prisons/2015/09/27/2d540be2-63a0-11e5-9757-e49273f05f65_story.html?utm_term=.e93f1e310ee9">40,000 political prisoners</a>. Journalists are among the detained and torture is allegedly common in Sisi’s prisons. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/egypt">severely abridged</a> and civil society groups are routinely persecuted. As if all this weren’t bad enough, Sisi’s security forces have been implicated in a wave of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/egypt#3aff76">extra-judicial killings</a>.</p> <p>Ignoring this abysmal human rights record, President Trump invited Sisi to Washington and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/world/middleeast/-egypt-sisi-trump-white-house.html">lavishly praised</a> him during their White House meeting on April 3rd. Given Trump’s affinity for strongmen, we perhaps shouldn’t be surprised that he would fête a leader with such a horrifying record of human rights abuses.</p> <p>But Trump wasn’t the only person who fêted Sisi while he was in Washington. So did U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue. He welcomed Sisi to the Chamber’s headquarters across the street from the White House and one of his lieutenants <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/president-sisi-s-visit-starts-new-chapter" title="">declared</a> that “[e]arly indications show we have entered a promising new period defined by the opportunity to forge a stronger partnership between the United States and Egypt based on common, vital interests.”</p> <p>What are those “common, vital interests?” The Chamber highlights the two nations’ $5 billion in bilateral trade. It also mentions regulatory cooperation, entrepreneurism, and intellectual property rights as priority areas on which to focus.</p> <p><em>Not one word on human rights</em>.  </p> <figure class="image-captioned align-right"><img alt="Donohue_-_Sisi_2.png" src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/388829/large/Donohue_-_Sisi_2.png?1492119812" title="Donohue_-_Sisi_2.png"> <figcaption>Light cocktail party conversation</figcaption> </figure> <p>Unfortunately, the Chamber’s embrace of Sisi and its silence about his appalling human rights record is business as usual for the group. Time and again, the Chamber has welcomed foreign leaders accused of gross human rights violations or opposed U.S. government actions to protect human rights overseas.</p> <p>For example, in August of 2016, the Chamber hosted the foreign ministers of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan despite the fact that all five of these nations engage in serious human rights abuses <a href="https://www.hrw.org/countries">according to Human Rights Watch</a>. What’s more, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are accused of using the <a href="http://uzbekgermanforum.org/protest-campaign-at-the-u-s-chamber-of-commerce/" title="">largest state-sponsored forced labor systems</a> of cotton production in the world. One has to wonder why an American business group would want to associate itself with business practices that are antithetical to the responsible business practices that many of its member firms publicly promote.</p> <p>In January of 2016, the Chamber <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=DOS-2015-0070-0010">urged</a> the elimination of responsible investment reporting requirements in Myanmar. This despite the fact that Myanmar’s repressive military remains in tight <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c6fe7dce-d26a-11e6-b06b-680c49b4b4c0">control</a> of many economic sectors, creating a risk that foreign investment in the country could lead to complicity in human rights abuses. What’s more, the one company that also offered written comments on the reporting requirements, Gap (which is also a Chamber member), <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=DOS-2015-0070-0042">supported</a> these reporting requirements as being a useful for tool for improving labor practices and human rights in Myanmar.</p> <p>The Chamber has also been a consistent opponent of transparency with respect to <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-minerals/?gclid=CjwKEAjwoLfHBRD_jLW93remyAQSJABIygGpRNrE0Ql0e4uOARQcuh9Y0jMu1_QObPgRGODE6aP1mxoCYSjw_wcB">conflict minerals</a>. Proceeds from the mining of these minerals have funded the ongoing conflict between various armed factions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is responsible for an estimated <a href="https://www.rescue.org/country/democratic-republic-congo#what-caused-the-current-crisis-in-congo">5.4 million deaths</a> as well as an epidemic of <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/we-have-to-break-the-culture-meet-the-women-fighting-congos-rape-epidemic">sexual violence</a>. In an effort to curtail international demand for minerals mined in the DRC and thereby extinguish the flow of money fueling the fighting, the U.S. government required that companies producing and/or selling products containing such minerals determine whether their products contained minerals from the DRC and publicly disclose whether their products were free of such minerals. The Chamber <a href="https://www.complianceweek.com/blogs/the-filing-cabinet/us-chamber-nam-take-legal-action-against-conflict-minerals-rule#.WO5pPmfauUk">sued</a> to block the implementation of this rule. In suing to block the conflict mineral rule, the Chamber ignored the position of companies such as Microsoft, General Electric, AT&amp;T, HP, Dell, Intel, IBM, and Verizon (at least some of whom are Chamber members) who all <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/archive/electronics-companies-must-break-us-chamber-conflict-minerals/">publicly support</a> the rule.</p> <p>Alien tort statute litigation is another area where the Chamber has shown a complete lack of concern for human rights. The alien tort statute gives non-citizens the right to sue in U.S. courts in certain circumstances. In these alien tort cases, the Chamber has <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/Chamber_litigation_report_part_II.pdf">repeatedly supported</a> multinational corporations, arguing that they shouldn’t be sued in U.S. courts for alleged complicity in human rights abuses overseas. For example, the Chamber supported Royal Dutch Shell, accused of complicity in a Nigerian government campaign against demonstrators protesting environmental degradations caused by Shell’s oil drilling. The campaign is alleged to have involved rape, looting, and pillaging. The Chamber also supported Rio Tinto, accused of complicity in atrocities including rape, pillaging, aerial bombardment of civilians, and the burning of villages during a civil war in Papua New Guinea.  </p> <p>The Chamber’s blatant and repeated disregard for human rights has not only placed it at odds with individual companies on specific policy questions, but it has also shown the Chamber to be increasingly out of step with the growing trend of greater business attention to human rights issues. The United Nations has developed <a href="https://www.unglobalcompact.org/library/2">guiding principles for business and human rights</a> under the auspices of its <a href="https://www.unglobalcompact.org">global compact</a>. An increasing number of companies around the world are <a href="https://www.unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/participants/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;search%5Bkeywords%5D=&amp;search%5Binitiatives%5D%5B%5D=11&amp;search%5Bper_page%5D=10&amp;search%5Bsort_field%5D=&amp;search%5Bsort_direction%5D=asc">signing on</a> to these principles.</p> <p>Unfortunately, the Chamber remains wedded to its “profits before people” way of thinking. While the Chamber’s total indifference to human rights is of course morally bankrupt, it is ultimately short-sighted and bad for business too. Those thousands of jailed Egyptians, thousands of enslaved Turkmen and Uzbeks, and millions of dead Congolese, they also represent so many economic actors – consumers but also innovators and entrepreneurs the Chamber claims to champion – who have been quite literally erased from the economy by the strongmen or armed militias who rule over them. What’s more, autocratic, violent regimes are incompatible with the climate of free-wheeling critical thinking that favors innovation and economic growth.</p> <p>The Chamber’s support for tyrants such as Sisi begs the question: does the Chamber really even care about economic growth, innovation, and entrepreneurism? Or is it just dedicated to defending the modern feudal order, preserving the rights of the strong while resisting any attempts to empower the weak?  </p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) AlienTortStatute ChamberofCommerce ConflictMinerals DonaldTrump Egypt GeneralSisi HumanRights Myanmar PresidentSisi sisi trump U.S.ChamberofCommerce USChamberofCommerce _1652963 Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:34:47 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/4/1650031/-The-Chamber-s-War-on-Women <p>You might think that an organization like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would be supportive of working women. After all, when women enter the workforce, they contribute to <a href="https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/how-working-women-help-the-economy/?_r=0" title="">economic growth</a>. And the Chamber has made “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/about-us/lets-grow" title="">#LetsGrow</a><span><span>”</span></span> its mantra for 2017.  </p> <p>Unfortunately, you would be wrong. In fact, the Chamber, like some members of the Republican Party it funds to advance its corporatist agenda, has been waging a decades-long war on working women.</p> <p>Perhaps no other incident epitomizes the Chamber’s attitude towards women better than a <a href="http://jezebel.com/5616116/us-chamber-of-commerce-equal-pay-advocates-have-a-fetish-for-money" title="">blog post</a>  on the Chamber website, which has since been deleted and swept under the rug. In this piece, former Chamber Senior Director of Communications Brad Peck asserted that equal pay advocates have “a fetish for money” and that if women didn’t wish to worry about the implications of being paid less than their male counterparts, they should “not overlook the obvious, immediate, power-of-the-individual solution: choosing the right place to work and choosing the right partner at home.” Because, after all, the Chamber’s logic goes, if more women only married well, they wouldn’t have to worry about silly little things like equal pay for equal work. To add insult to injury, the piece was written on the anniversary of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted women the right to vote.</p> <p>And while the Chamber may have briefly interrupted what we imagine is a never-ending <em>Mad Men</em> binge-watching party in the office to apologize for the blog post, it has yet to interrupt its lobbying campaign against legislation that would advance equity for women.</p> <p>Dating back to at least the 1970s, the Chamber has long opposed workplace policies for women relating to equal pay, pregnancy, and medical leave. In 1977 the Chamber <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1977/04/07/archives/pregnancy-benefit-bill-is-disputed-at-hearing.html?_r=0" title="">lobbied against</a> amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to cover women from discrimination due to pregnancy. Just a year later, in 1978, the Chamber used the argument that pregnancy is a “<a href="http://old.seiu.org/2009/06/top-10-historical-us-chamber-of-commerce-quotes-against-healthcare.php">voluntary</a>” condition in its opposition to the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. We assume that these Chamber policy decisions were made in a room by people who looked a lot like <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/trump-health-care-summit-white-guys">this</a>.</p> <p>In <strong>1987</strong>, the Chamber warned that the Family and Medical Leave Act would set a “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/03/us/washington-talk-momentum-and-family-leave.html?scp=1&amp;sq=%2522u.s.%20chamber%2522%20%2522medical%20leave%2522&amp;st=cse" title="">dangerous precedent</a> of federally mandated employee benefits.” What it didn’t mention is that in addition to covering pregnancy-related leave, the FMLA simply allows women to receive wages while recovering from a serious illness, caring for an ill family member, or newborn.</p> <p>In <strong>1998</strong>, the Chamber <a href="http://thepennsylvaniaprogressive.com/2009/07/if-the-u-s-chamber-had-their-way-pennsylvanians-would-suffer/">opposed</a> President Clinton’s push for equal pay, saying that wage disparities are due to the interruption of many women’s careers in order to raise a family, as opposed to discrimination.  </p> <p>In <strong>2007</strong>, the Chamber sided with Lilly Ledbetter's employer in her suit demanding equal pay because the Chamber’s lawyers complained that Ledbetter’s "tear-stained testimony" might prejudice the jury against her employer.</p> <p>But, the Chamber didn’t stop there: In <strong>2009</strong>, it <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/letter-opposing-s-181-lilly-ledbetter-fair-pay-act">urged</a> members of Congress “to oppose the ‘Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.’” <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/brochure-equal_pay_and_ledbetter_act.cfm">The Lilly Ledbetter Act</a> corrected the 2007 decision by the Supreme Court that required Ledbetter to bring her pay discrimination claim within 180 days of receiving her first unequal paycheck, even though she did not know she was being paid unfairly until years later. The Act clarified that every discriminatory paycheck restarts the 180 day clock to bring a claim. This legislation was a hugely important win for women toward eliminating the gender pay gap.</p> <p>As if lobbying against a ban on pregnancy discrimination and opposing equal pay for equal work salary wasn’t enough, in <strong>2009</strong>, the Chamber went so far as to <a href="http://rawstory.com/2009/11/moveon-furious-chamber-commerce-lobbying-block-rape-victims-lawsuits/" target="_blank" title="">lobby against legislation</a> that would allow rape victims to bring lawsuits against their employers.</p> <p>Recent years have not brought about a sudden change of heart and the Chamber continues its war on women. In both <strong>2014</strong> and <strong>2015</strong>, the Chamber <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/paycheck-fairness-act-would-increase-lawsuits-erode-employer-defenses-says-us-chamber" title="">opposed to the Paycheck Fairness Act</a><span><span>, legislation that would address the pay gap by requiring companies to justify pay discrepancies based on legitimate factors such as education, training, and experience.</span></span> And this year, when the Chamber laid out its labor priorities for the new congress, it <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/documents/files/2017_labor_policy_recommendations.pdf">stated</a> that while Democrats are still fighting “what they ostensibly see as lingering inequality in wages between men and women,” Republicans should use the opportunity to focus more on anti-retaliation and clarification of employers’ defenses.</p> <p>When you get right down to it, as far as the Chamber is concerned, receiving equal pay for equal work decreases the profits of the companies that currently engage in gender discrimination. For the Chamber and many of the giant corporations that fund it, inequality is a lot cheaper than closing the pay gap which still <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/03/29/new-way-close-gender-pay-gap">remains at 22 cents</a> on the dollar for full­time, year-round work. The Chamber’s steadfast opposition to equal pay for equal work and other labor protections benefitting women makes us wonder, who <em>really</em> has the “fetish for money?”</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title="">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) EqualPay EqualPayDay equalpayforequalwork FairPay Recommended USChamberofCommerce _1650031 Tue, 04 Apr 2017 13:03:28 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/31/1649133/-Behind-the-Headlines-Trump-GOP-Regulatory-Rollbacks-Reveal-Corporate-Influence <p>If you’re a progressive, you might feel tempted to pop the champagne corks after the spectacular collapse of the GOP’s effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last week making it seem as if President Trump and Republican Congress may not be ready for primetime governing.</p> <p>With all of these stories dominating the news cycle, some might think that Trump administration and GOP Congress are simply not ready to govern. Hobbled by incompetence and internal squabbling, they seem to lurch from one fiasco to the next.</p> <p>However, the daily headlines of scandals mask <span>one area where Trump and the GOP Congress have been successful at advancing the Republican agenda</span>: they have already succeeded in pursuing the most aggressive regulatory rollback since the Reagan administration.</p> <p>The main driver of this deregulatory agenda is the big business behemoth that is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Sure, it may have been Steve Bannon who uttered the words, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/23/stephen-bannons-nationalist-call-to-arms-annotated/?tid=a_inl&amp;utm_term=.fd961c9cba8a" title="">deconstruct the administrative state</a>,” but it is the Chamber along with its big business allies who behind this drive to gut critical public protections.</p> <p>So forgive us for being Debbie Downers and for corking the champagne as we take a moment to bring you up to speed on what the GOP, Chamber, and Trump have succeeded in doing during the first two months of this administration.  </p> <p>The past two months have been marked by an aggressive use of the heretofore <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/lawmaker-news/239189-the-congressional-review-act-rarely-used-and-almost-always">rare</a>ly used Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows Congress to strike down regulatory protections issued in the final months of a previous administration using expedited procedures. <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/resolutions/">Hundreds</a> of public protections are at risk through the CRA, 15 have been repealed by the House, 12 in the Senate, and already 7 have been signed by Trump.</p> <p>In February, Trump signed three CRA resolutions, reversing Obama regulations banning <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/gun-limits-severely-mentally-ill/">Social Security recipients with a mental impairment from buying firearms</a>, protecting streams from <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/stream-protection-rule/">water pollution by coal mines</a>, and requiring oil, gas, and mining companies to publish payments they make to foreign governments.  The Chamber was a big booster of both of these giveaways to the fossil fuel industry.</p> <p>Just this week, Trump signed four more CRA resolutions. Among them was the <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/fair-pay-safe-workplaces/">"Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces"</a> rule, which barred companies from receiving federal contracts if they had a history of violating wage, labor or workplace safety laws. The U.S. Chamber has been <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-blasts-fair-pay-and-safe-workplaces-executive-order-overreaching-and">lobbying against</a> this rule since its creation, in an effort to protect big federal contractors from being finally held accountable. Another of these was a Bureau of Land Management rule known as "<a href="https://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/wo/Planning_and_Renewable_Resources/planning_images.Par.11752.File.dat/Planning2_0_Factsheet_FINAL.pdf">Planning 2.0</a>," which gave the federal government a greater role in land use decisions. This rule was opposed by the energy industry, and therefore <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/key-vote-letter-senate-supporting-cra-resolution-repealing-blm-planning-20-rule">the Chamber</a> strongly lobbied for its demise.</p> <p>Unfortunately, the CRA isn’t the only tool in the Trump Administration’s toolbox. Trump has also issued several executive orders (EOs) undoing our public protections. He issued an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/30/presidential-executive-order-reducing-regulation-and-controlling">EO mandating that two regulations are</a> to be repealed for every new one that goes on the books. This week, he signed an EO aimed at undoing numerous climate initiatives put in place by the Obama administration. The EO includes telling the EPA and other agencies to rollback components of the Clean Power Plan, reconsider carbon standards for new coal plants, reassess methane emission regulations, as well as several <a href="http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/3/27/14922516/trump-executive-order-climate">other changes</a> sought by the fossil fuel industry. And, earlier this month, Trump announced the EPA would <a href="http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/3/15/14828070/trump-fuel-economy-standards">review and likely weaken Obama’s fuel economy standards</a> for cars and light trucks in the post-2022 period.  While there may be <a href="http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2016/12/7/13855470/donald-trump-epa-climate-regulations">obstacles</a> to achieving all of this, it is still a huge step in the wrong direction if we want to have a serious chance at limiting the impacts of global warming. And, sadly, these deregulatory these moves were all <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/illinois/articles/2017-03-29/environmental-groups-vowing-to-fight-trump-climate-actions">sought</a> by the Chamber, which is no stranger to battling Obama-era environmental policies. In the course of just 3 years, the Chamber opposed the EPA in <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/Chamber%20litigation%20report%20part%201.pdf">court 26 times</a> and they have lobbied on these issues for years.</p> <p>Most recently, the U.S. House of Representatives did the bidding of corporate America by using the CRA to vote to repeal <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/broadband-privacy-protections/">Broadband Privacy Protections</a>, which prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from tracking the browsing habits of customers without their permission and place obligations on ISPs to keep their customers’ data secure, giving customers more control over their personal data and privacy. Earlier this month the Chamber <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/letter/multi-association-letter-senate-commerce-supporting-cra-resolution-disapproving-the-fcc">sent a letter</a> to the Science and Transportation Committee leadership urging members to vote in favor of this CRA stripping Americans of their internet privacy.</p> <p>So there you have it. Trump and the GOP Congress are successfully dismantling many important public protections including those protecting clean water, clean air, worker health and safety, and internet privacy. And the Chamber has been behind most of these regulatory rollbacks we’ve seen in the past 60 days. While Steven Bannon may falsely claim that deconstructing the “administrative state” will benefit the people, the reality is that it is not the people that are behind this agenda, it is the Chamber and giant corporations that are pushing it. Empty populist rhetoric aside, the administration’s deregulatory zeal is proof positive of the overwhelming influence of its corporate masters.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce CRA GOP trump USChamberofCommerce _1649133 Fri, 31 Mar 2017 17:34:13 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/23/1646403/-When-Regulations-Don-t-Exist-Small-Business-Suffers <p><span><span><span><span>Political rhetoric blaming government regulations for stifled small business growth is at an all-time high, and it’s no surprise that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is behind most of it. The Chamber has a long history of opposing regulations under the guise of being a voice for small business. Whether it’s the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/featured/overtime"><span><span>overtime rule</span></span></a> that would provide overtime pay to millions of middle income Americans, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cleanwaterrule">Clean Water Rule</a> to protect our streams and rivers, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/clean-power-plan-existing-power-plants"><span><span>Clean Power Plan</span></span></a> to limit power plant emissions of greenhouse gases, and the <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/open-internet"><span><span>open internet rules</span></span></a> to preserve net neutrality, the Chamber has yet to meet a regulation it didn’t want rolled back.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span><span><span><span>The Chamber also called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/us-chamber-supports-american-health-care-act">supporting</a> the American Health Care Act, despite the <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/costestimate/americanhealthcareact.pdf">24 million</a> who would lose health care. But it doesn’t stop there. Tom Donohue and his big business allies would also like to see a repeal of Dodd-Frank Act, and specifically condemned the <a href="https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2013/bhca-1.pdf"><span><span>Volcker Rule</span></span></a> to limit speculative trades by banks of the kind that led to the 2008 Financial Crisis and has vowed to fight against the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-activities/resource-center/fact-sheets/dol-final-rule-to-address-conflicts-of-interest"><span><span>fiduciary rule</span></span></a>, which protects retirement savers from dishonest investment advisors.</span></span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:start"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Not only has the Chamber come out in favor or nearly every CRA challenge we’ve seen since Trump took office, it is also a strong supporter of the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr5/text"><span><span>Regulatory Accountability Act</span></span></a>, which would hamstring future efforts to protect consumers, workers, and the environment by layering on so many additional process requirements that rulemaking to protect the public would essentially come to a halt. Just last week, the Chamber released two <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdr90Lrg3TU">video ads</a>, targeting Senators Heitkamp and McCaskill, urging them to support the RAA. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p><span><span><span><span>All of this, under the clever, yet dishonest PR scheme that </span></span></span></span><span><span>regulations hurt, and never help, small businesses. It makes perfect sense- if the Chamber and big business want to accomplish the corporate windfall that would result from a deregulatory agenda, the best way to do so is to tout themselves as the advocate of Main Street.   </span></span></p> <p><span><span><span><span>However, many of the regulations that Donohue mentions don’t even apply to small businesses, and others, like the Clean Water Rule and the CFPB actually <em>help</em> small businesses. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span><span>While these conservative talking points often misleadingly focus on the burdens that regulations place on small business, surveys and poll data show that the very owners of these small businesses generally do not agree with their alleged advocates. According to <a href="https://www.smallbusinessmajority.org/our-research/government-accountability/small-business-owners%E2%80%99-opinions-regulations-and-job-creation">a poll</a> by Small Business Majority, 86% of small business owners agree some regulation of business is necessary for a modern economy, and 93% of them agree their business can live with some regulation if it is fair, manageable and reasonable. What’s more, 78% of small employers agree regulations are important in protecting small businesses from unfair competition and to level the playing field with big business. Another 79% of small business owners support having clean air and water in their community in order to keep their family, employees and customers healthy, and 61% support standards that move the country towards energy efficiency and clean energy. This runs directly contradictory to the Chamber’s lobbying for the repeal of <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/stream-protection-rule/" title="">Stream Protection rule</a>, and the <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/oil-anti-corruption-rule/">Oil Anti-corruption rule</a>, which would leaving communities susceptible to water pollution by coal miners, and enable oil tycoons to avoid transparency.  </span></span></p> <p><span><span>Regulations do help small businesses and a lack of regulation can have detrimental effects.  Just yesterday, a small business owner <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/2os2nfp1yl1d3dm/David%20Borris%20testimony.pdf?dl=0">testified</a> before the House Small Business Committee and urged lawmakers to ensure that public protections are in place to give his catering business fundamental confidence that the food and water they serve and consume is safe.</span></span> <span><span>Regulations provide the market with a basic level of certainty to ensure we are protected from tainted food, unsafe drugs, poisoned water, and polluted air.</span></span></p> <p><span><span>There are other regulations, such as anti-trust laws that address price discrimination and price fixing, that help small business owners by leveling the playing field against larger businesses. The Chamber also fails to mention the many regulations enforced under the Small Business Administration that small businesses <a href="https://www.acquisition.gov/far/html/Subpart%2019_2.html">are prioritized</a> for a certain set of government contracts. </span></span></p> <p><span><span>When regulations don’t exist, it is typically small businesses who suffer most. The Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico devastated small businesses in the tourism and fishing industry, and not surprisingly it was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who went to court on behalf of British Petroleum and sought to keep the local small businesses out of court, all the while claiming to be the voice of Main Street. </span></span></p> <p><span><span><span>While the Chamber is spending big bucks to lobby against commonsense protections, it is crucial to remember that clean air, clean water, and regulation of Wall Street protect the public. Clear rules protect small businesses and manufacturers from powerful interests who use their financial advantage to try to rig the system in their favor.</span></span></span></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/" title="">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce CleanPowerPlan cleanwaterrule Regulations SmallBusiness USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1646403 Thu, 23 Mar 2017 13:40:50 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/20/1645344/-Profits-Before-People-The-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-s-Litigation-Hall-of-Shame <p class="is-empty-p" style="text-align:center"></p> <p>In a <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/02/03/1629577/-Chamber-of-Litigation" title="">previous piece</a>, we wrote about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s very busy litigation practice, the issues the Chamber litigates most frequently, the government agencies it most often opposes, and the giant multinational corporations its litigation most often supports.</p> <p>In a newly-released <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/Chamber_litigation_report_part_II.pdf">report</a>, we examine a few dozen of the most egregious cases the Chamber has litigated. From financial crisis-related litigation to cases stemming from BP’s <em>Deepwater Horizon</em> oil spill to Keystone XL to fracking to the Clean Power Plan to a case involving the Buckyball magnetic toy that injured over 1,700 children, the Chamber has been actively involved in some of the most notorious civil cases of recent years. Some of the lowlights of the Chamber’s litigation include:</p> <ul> <li><strong><span>Litigation related to the <em>Deepwater Horizon</em> oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.</span></strong><span> The Chamber filed an amicus brief on behalf of BP <em>on</em> <em>4 separate occasions</em>, arguing for legal technicalities that would eliminate or reduce civil fines and penalties that government agencies sought to impose upon BP as well as obstruct class action litigation brought by small businesses against BP.</span></li> <li><strong><span>Litigation related to the Buckyball magnetic toy responsible for injuring thousands of children.</span></strong><span> The Chamber filed an amicus brief in support of the CEO of the company that sold Buckyballs, a toy that injured over 1,700 young children. It argued that he should not be personally liable for recall costs in spite of the fact that he had had ample warning of the danger posed by the toy and had indeed fought recall efforts, resulting in a delay that led to further sales—and further injuries.</span></li> <li><strong><span>Litigation related to for-profit Corinthian Colleges’ fraudulently misleading students.</span></strong><span> The Chamber filed an amicus brief in support of Corinthian Colleges’ effort to prevent former students from suing it in court for fraud despite the fact that Corinthian was already the subject of multiple investigations targeting similar conduct and had already settled a previous fraud case involving similar allegations.</span></li> <li><strong><span>Litigation related to the Keystone XL pipeline.</span></strong><span> The Chamber sided with the Canadian energy giant behind the pipeline over American ranchers and farmers who didn’t want the pipeline being routed through their land.</span></li> <li><strong><span>Fracking Litigation.</span></strong><span> The Chamber fought to strike down municipal zoning ordinances to prevent fracking.</span></li> <li><strong><span>The Clean Power Plan.</span></strong><span> The Chamber sued the EPA to block President Obama’s signature initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at power plants.</span></li> <li><strong><span>Minimum Wage Litigation.</span></strong><span> The Chamber fought to strike down Seattle’s law raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, claiming that it would be bad for workers.</span></li> <li><strong><span>GMO Labeling Litigation.</span></strong><span> The Chamber filed an amicus brief opposing Vermont’s GMO labeling law, arguing that it did not advance a legitimate state interest and impinged upon corporations’ free speech rights.</span></li> <li><strong><span>Alien Tort Statute Litigation.</span></strong><span> The Chamber filed amicus briefs in cases involving Nigerian and Papua New Guinean plaintiffs who alleged that foreign multinationals had been complicit in gross human rights abuses including rape, pillage, and aerial bombardment of civilians. In both cases, public protests against the industrial sites in question were brutally repressed by the government, allegedly at the behest of and assisted by the corporate defendants. </span></li> <li><strong><span>Walmart Gun Sales Litigation.</span></strong><span> The Chamber filed an amicus brief supporting Walmart’s effort to prevent shareholders from voting on a proxy resolution calling for the company’s board to examine its sale of high capacity firearms.</span></li> <li><strong><span>Labor Rights for Gig Economy Workers.</span></strong><span> The Chamber sued the city of Seattle to block its law allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize.</span></li> <li><strong><span>Litigation against Goldman Sachs for fraudulently misleading investors. </span></strong><span>The Chamber filed an amicus brief supporting Goldman Sachs in its efforts to make it more difficult for defrauded investors including pension funds to sue as a result of huge losses they suffered during the financial crisis.</span></li> </ul> <p>Taken as a whole, the Chamber’s legal filings show it to be attempting to advance an exceptionally dangerous agenda via the courts. This agenda includes:</p> <ul> <li><strong><span>Invalidating important regulations protecting workers, consumers, and the environment</span></strong><span>, including rules promoting clean air, clean water, greater information, and prudent banking practices. The Chamber’s opposition to regulation is almost blanket, even extending to cases where the rule at issue would correct obvious market failures. </span></li> <li><strong><span>Making it harder to hold corporations accountable</span></strong><span>. The Chamber seeks to make it more difficult for consumers and small businesses harmed by corporate malfeasance to go to court. It also argues for more limited corporate prosecutions and for smaller penalties. Finally, it argues against U.S. jurisdiction in cases where corporations are accused of human rights abuses overseas. The Chamber’s ultimate goal in these cases is the same: corporate accountability should be minimized and/or eliminated.</span></li> <li><strong><span>Putting profits before people.</span></strong><span> The Chamber takes a very robber baron view of business. Whether defending Wall Street speculation or Big Pharma price gouging or appalling fast food labor practices or new economy exploitation of gig economy workers, the Chamber is unconcerned with how dubious business practices harm workers and consumers.</span></li> <li><strong><span>Favoring Big Business over small businesses. </span></strong><span>While the Chamber claims to be the voice of small businesses in Washington, when it comes to its litigation practice, it can be relied upon to favor the giant multinational corporations that fund it. Whether it’s by arguing for reduced access to the courts, opposing stricter supervision of Wall Street banks designed to reduce the risk of future financial crises, fighting for Big Oil against emissions controls, or supporting Big Pharma’s schemes to keep drug prices sky high, the Chamber always comes down on the side of its deep-pocketed Big Business patrons, ignoring the impact on small businesses.</span></li> </ul> <p><span>The Chamber’s use of the courts to advance its Big Business-friendly, anti-consumer, anti-worker, anti-environmental agenda is important in considering the future of the Supreme Court. Some of these cases reached the Supreme Court; others may yet reach the Supreme Court. Progressives should demand that any future justice recognize the tremendous importance of regulations that protect workers, consumers, and the environment and refuse to put profits before people as the Chamber so often argues our courts should do.</span></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on<span> </span><a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/" title="">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a><span> </span>or follow us on<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) ChamberofCommerce USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1645344 Mon, 20 Mar 2017 13:39:21 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/1/1639145/-The-Chamber-s-Never-Ending-War-on-Workers <p>The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s war on workers was dealt a significant blow when fast food king Andy Puzder’s nomination to be Secretary of Labor collapsed. As we detailed three weeks ago, Puzder and the Chamber were simpatico on many issues of concern to labor. However, it didn’t take the Chamber long to pick itself back up and open the next front in its war on workers. We’re only midway through the week but the Chamber has already both supported Republicans in Congress who are using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to push to undo a <a href="http://www.citizenvox.org/2017/03/01/congresss-latest-attack-public-protections-endanger-workers/">commonsense worker protection</a> regulation <em>and </em>released a <a href="https://www.politicopro.com/f/?id=0000015a-823c-d487-a37e-ee3cc5170000">report</a> outlining pro-worker Obama-era policies at the National Labor Relations Board that it wants reversed.</p> <p>First, a little background: The CRA allows Congress, by simple majority vote in both chambers, with very little debate and no possibility of a filibuster, to undo recently issued rules so long as the president does not veto the legislation (see Samantha Bee for our<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/02/samantha-bee-donald-trump-gop-congress-hj-69" target="_blank"> favorite explainer</a> yet). Already, the <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/stream-protection-rule/" title="">Stream Protection Rule</a>, <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/gun-limits-severely-mentally-ill/">Social Security Administration Rule</a>, and the <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/oil-anti-corruption-rule/" title="">Oil and Gas Industry Anti-Corruption Rule</a> have been repealed via the CRA, leaving communities susceptible to water pollution by coal miners, enabling oil tycoons to avoid transparency, and allowing those with severe mental illness to purchase guns . Congress is threatening to hold CRA votes on <a href="http://rulesatrisk.org/">dozens of other important rules</a>, which may result in Americans losing critical health, safety, and environmental protections.</p> <p>The Chamber’s main labor attack this week is focused on rolling back an important worker protection rule known as the <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-12-19/pdf/2016-30410.pdf">Volks rule</a>, which <a href="https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=NEWS_RELEASES&amp;p_id=33561">clarifies</a> an employer’s ongoing obligation to maintain records occupational injuries or illnesses for five years. The Chamber-backed CRA challenge, <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-115hjres83ih/pdf/BILLS-115hjres83ih.pdf"><span><span>H.J. Res. 83</span></span></a><span><span>, was introduced by Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) and is expected to be voted on in the House this week. It comes as no surprise that the Chamber </span></span><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00082040&amp;cycle=2016">donated</a><span><span> to Byrne in both 2014 and 2016, and is </span></span><a href="https://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/osha_s_overreach_and_how_congress_must_block_it" title="">avidly working</a><span><span> to lobby for his resolution and drum up employer support. </span></span></p> <p>Just yesterday, the Chamber sent a “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/170228_kv_hjres83_volksrulecra_congress.pdf">Key Vote Alert</a>” to House members, making note that it “will consider including votes related to it in [its] 2017 <em>How They Voted</em> scorecard.” (With the amount of money the Chamber <a href="https://www.citizen.org/documents/2016%2012%205%20The%20Republican%20Party%20and%20the%20Chamber%20of%20Secrets%20final.pdf">spends</a> supporting Republican candidates, we’re sure this got members’ attention).</p> <p><span><span>The five year record keeping requirement formalized by the Volks rule is not new. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had been holding employers accountable to this standard for 40 years prior to 2012, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned this decades-long precedent in </span></span><em><a href="https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/018A542863EAA754852579D8004EAFF4/%24file/11-1106-1367462.pdf">AKM LLC (Volks) v. Secretary of Labor</a></em><span><span>. This hindered OSHA’s ability to cite employers for recordkeeping violations and in response, </span></span><a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-30410.pdf">OSHA issued</a><span><span> the Volks rule on December 19, 2016 to reaffirm its procedures in advance of any other federal courts reviewing OSHA’s recordkeeping regulations. </span></span></p> <p>The Chamber asserts that the Volks rule “will improperly subject millions of American businesses to citations for paperwork violations, while doing nothing to improve worker health and safety.” What it isn’t mentioned, of course, is that by inspecting accurate data from employer records <em>over a period of several years</em>, OSHA is able to effectively enforce its recordkeeping policies, ensuring employers keep accurate records of employee injuries. With accurate data, OSHA can more effectively identify and target the hazards putting workers at the greatest risk.  Likewise, employers can proactively use the records to keep their own worksites safe.</p> <p>If employers do not keep accurate injury logs, even greater numbers of American workers are likely to suffer preventable fatalities and injuries on the job. The Chamber fails to recognize that this issue is quite literally a life or death matter. Already, about <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf">4,800 people die on the job</a> every year from injuries, (but an estimated <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/content/download/174867/4158803/1647_DOTJ2016.pdf">50,000 people</a> die each year from occupational <em>illnesses</em> they contracted from work, like silicosis and chronic beryllium disease), and about <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/osh.pdf">3 million</a> people are injured at work annually. The requirement that employers keep years’ worth of records has allowed OSHA to better enforce the law and ensure companies maintain accurate records of employee injuries.  With accuracy, OSHA can understand where these deaths and injuries are occurring, under what circumstances, and how they can be prevented.</p> <p>Undoing the Volks rule will set us back more than four decades, undoing much of the tremendous progress that has been made in improving workplace safety.  By supporting this CRA, the Chamber and its GOP allies are once again pushing the interests of big business instead of pushing efforts to improve workplace safety. It’s yet another example of the Chamber and the GOP placing profits before people.</p> <p><em><span><span><span><span>If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on <a href="http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/">www.chamberofcommercewatch.org</a> or follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/US-Chamber-Watch-103788303008899/">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamberWatch">Twitter</a>.</span></span></span></span></em></p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) Chamber CRA Labor USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1639145 Wed, 01 Mar 2017 20:45:32 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/2/23/1636984/-U-S-Chamber-of-Commerce-GOP-s-Best-and-Oldest-Ally-in-the-War-on-Safety-Net <p>This week, the <em>New York</em> <em>Times</em> wrote a less <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/us/politics/social-security-safety-net-trump.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news">than optimistic piece</a> on the future of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The article named the usual suspects aiming to slash these critical public safeguards-- most notably, Mick Mulvaney, Tom Price and members of the House Freedom Caucus. But, the article left out one important player: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has been one of the staunchest opponents of these critical programs it dismisses as “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/speech/10-truths-about-america%E2%80%99s-entitlement-programs-address-r-bruce-josten-executive-vice">the main driver of deficits</a>” and has been working to undo them for decades.</p> <p>The trade association’s war on Social Security dates back to the program’s very beginning, when the Chamber was a steadfast opponent of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=h5MuAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=FpkFAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=4162,407156&amp;dq=us+chamber+of+commerce+social+security&amp;hl=en">New Deal agenda</a>, arguing that Roosevelt was attempting to “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=eJA3BAAAQBAJ&amp;dq=us+chamber+of+commerce+roosevelt+sovietize&amp;q=chamber+of+commere#v=snippet&amp;q=sovietize&amp;f=false">Sovietize America</a>.” The Chamber lost its battle against the New Deal and Social Security became law.</p> <p>Not only did America remain a capitalist stronghold even after Social Security became law, Americans secured additional safety net protections like Medicare, guaranteed medical care for the aged or disabled.  <a href="http://www.socialsecurityworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Medicare_FINAL.pdf">Roughly 1 in 5</a> Americans receive health care coverage through Medicare; in 2015, Medicare provided health insurance coverage to 55.3 million Americans.  </p> <p><span><span>Despite the overwhelming success of these programs in </span></span><a href="http://www.appam.org/assets/1/7/The_Poverty-Reducing_Effect_Of_Medicaid.pdf"><span><span>reducing poverty</span></span></a><span><span> and providing health care </span></span><a href="http://www.socialsecurityworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Medicare_FINAL.pdf"><span><span>more affordably</span></span></a><span><span> than private insurance, the Chamber never misses an opportunity to call for their demise. In 2005, the Chamber </span></span><a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-pushes-social-security-reformhttps:/www.uschamber.com/press-release/us-chamber-pushes-social-security-reform"><span><span>supported</span></span></a><span><span> President George W. Bush’s </span></span><a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-11-bush-social-security_x.htm"><span><span>attempt to privatize</span></span></a><span><span> Social Security by joining the business-funded and misleadingly-named </span></span><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coalition_for_the_Modernization_and_Protection_of_America's_Social_Security"><span><span>Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America's Social Security</span></span></a><span><span> (COMPASS). Despite the fact that Bush and the Chamber pushed aggressively for privatization, their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, as the proposed cuts to these vital protections were </span></span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/01/sotu-social-security/" title=""><span><span>widely unpopular</span></span></a><span><span> with the American public, and still are, according to <a href="http://www.socialsecurityworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Updated-polling-memo-10-17.pdf" title="">polling.</a> </span></span></p> <p>Undeterred, the Chamber continued its crusade against America’s social safety net. In 2013, Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s then top lobbyist, delivered a speech to Chamber board members outlining the “<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/documents/files/2013_Entitlement_Packet_Revised.pdf" title="">10 truths about America’s entitlement programs</a>.” In today’s political parlance, we would call these “10 truths” “alternative facts”.</p> <p>We’ll spare you the pain of myth busting each of the Chamber’s ten “truths,” because in one way or another, the Chamber’s arguments all stem from the same place. Anyone who’s ever walked through an airport or waiting room while <em>Fox and Friends</em> was airing has heard the same old tired talking points: entitlement programs are large, expensive, and will only continue to become larger and more expensive, and something must be done <em>now</em>. The Chamber never mentions all of the people who benefit from social insurance programs. In 2012, <a href="http://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/public_policy_institute/econ_sec/2013/social-security-impact-national-economy-AARP-ppi-econ-sec.pdf">57 million</a> Americans received almost <a href="http://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/public_policy_institute/econ_sec/2013/social-security-impact-national-economy-AARP-ppi-econ-sec.pdf">$800 billion</a> in Social Security benefits. Economists estimate that Social Security benefits in turn generate approximately <a href="http://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/public_policy_institute/econ_sec/2013/social-security-impact-national-economy-AARP-ppi-econ-sec.pdf">$1.4 trillion</a> in economic output and more than <a href="http://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/public_policy_institute/econ_sec/2013/social-security-impact-national-economy-AARP-ppi-econ-sec.pdf">9.2 million</a> jobs.</p> <p>Moreover, when the Chamber repeatedly stated in 2013 that “the cost to make these programs financially solvent for the next 75 years is almost $40 trillion,” it ignores the fact that unless the Chamber has been given a crystal ball that we’re unaware of, it is nearly impossible to know what the fiscal landscape will be in 2088. Nor does the Chamber mention that it would be very easy to put Social Security and Medicare on firm fiscal ground simply by looking at the multitude of policies that could provide more revenue for these programs.</p> <p>In July of 2016, the Chamber <a href="http://www.benefitspro.com/2016/07/27/republican-led-legislation-would-raise-social-secu?page_all=1&amp;slreturn=1487703517" title="">signaled support</a> for the deceptively-named Save Our Social Security (S.O.S.) Act <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5747">legislation</a> that would raise the full retirement age from age 67 to 69, beginning in 2022. Then in August of 2016, the Chamber addressed an <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/above-the-fold/open-memo-lester-holt-the-most-important-overlooked-election-issue" target="_blank">open letter</a> to presidential debate host Lester Holt suggesting that spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid was out of control and urging him to question the candidates about their plans for these programs.</p> <p>While the Chamber and the GOP <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/22/1613694/-Exposing-the-Chamber-of-Commerce-The-Trump-Transition-The-Chamber-Takes-the-Wheel">appear to agree</a> on nearly every issue, it seemed to rub the Chamber the wrong way that Donald Trump, the GOP presidential standard-bearer, had promised <a href="https://medium.com/senator-bernie-sanders/14-times-donald-trump-promised-not-to-cut-social-security-medicare-and-medicaid-99beefa9f584#.rt7ew27fd" title="">on 13 separate occasions</a> to not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.</p> <p>Which brings us to the present.</p> <p>Since the election, President Trump has adopted most of the Chamber’s agenda, and he’s even <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/01/24/trumps-war-on-medicaid-our-new-president-wants-to-gut-a-critical-program-for-the-poor/">walked back</a> his promise to protect Medicaid. He hasn’t, however, said a word about Social Security or Medicare. Meanwhile, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan has made it very clear that he intends to move full steam ahead on <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-medicare-ryan-20161114-story.html">destroying Medicare</a>. He will without a doubt have the Chamber as an ally in that fight.</p> <p>In Tom Donohue’s <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/speech/2017-state-american-business-address">2017 State of American Business</a> address, he once again reaffirmed the Chamber’s commitment to playing a leading role in gutting these programs. “<span>It is simple that there can be no solution to the nation’s long-term fiscal imbalances and our exploding national debt that does not involve reforming Social Security, Medicare, and for the state budgets, Medicaid,” he said. In Chamber-speak, “reforming” means “cutting.”</span></p> <p>The simple fact is this: The Chamber has a long history of leading the charge to destroy America’s social safety net. And while we have yet to see whether or not Trump will keep his promises to protect Social Security and Medicare, so far the signs are not promising. With Speaker Ryan, the Republican-controlled Congress, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, who <a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/25/14376014/trump-social-security-medicare-mulvaney">referred</a> to Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,” and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price who wants to privatize <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/tom-price-radically-conservative-healthcare-vision-231965">Medicare</a> all in favor of gutting social insurance programs, 2017 may unfortunately be the Chamber’s likeliest opportunity to win its decades-long battle against Social Security and Medicare.</p> <p>It’s great to see the impact of the loud and clear pushback lawmakers are getting in town halls in districts across the country, and that average citizens are making sure their voices are being heard. The upcoming war over protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid  is going to be another case where American voters are not going to sit back quietly and watch the hard-won, essential protections that keep their families safe and healthy be stripped away so that huge corporations can make millions more in profit.</p> <p>Now it’s time for the Chamber (and the companies that fund the lobbying behemoth) to get some of this much-deserved flak as well.</p> <p class="is-empty-p"></p> rss@dailykos.com (Chamber Watch) Chamber ChamberofCommerce DonaldTrump Medicaid Medicare MickMulvaney PaulRyan SocialSecurity TomPrice trump USChamber USChamberofCommerce _1636984 Thu, 23 Feb 2017 19:13:24 +0000