{"id":332017,"date":"2010-02-17T13:15:28","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T18:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.36106"},"modified":"2010-02-17T14:57:11","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T19:57:11","slug":"splitsville-for-climate-group-corporate-bedfellows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/332017","title":{"rendered":"Splitsville for Climate Group, Corporate Bedfellows"},"content":{"rendered":"

BP, ConocoPhillips, and Caterpillar have dropped out<\/a> of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the coalition of big business and environmental interests that launched three years ago with a dramatic letter<\/a> to President Bush. USCAP was a marriage of convenience between groups like the Nature Conservancy that wanted a climate bill, and companies like Shell and DuPont that wanted to make their voices heard rather than deny the inevitable. <\/p>\n

But now that the climate bill is looking extremely evitable<\/a>, the strange bedfellows of USCAP are heading back toward separate bedrooms.<\/p>\n

Only a few months ago, USCAP was pushing for a federal cap-and-trade program,
\nemissions reduction targets, and new technology incentives. But since Senate Dems have slammed<\/a> cap-and-trade and Congress has ground to a halt on health care, those companies are starting to think they may not have to worry about prepping for cap-and-trade. And if a bill isn’t a sure prospect for the next few years, then why were they lobbying for one? <\/p>\n

All three companies had conflicting interests that pulled them away from the coalition. BP and Conoco were members<\/a> of the American Petroleum Institute, which fought climate legislation even as the two companies’ CEOs signed USCAP statements calling for cap-and-trade. And Caterpillar slipped clean coal provisions into USCAP’s blueprint<\/a> while a member<\/a> of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which lobbied against legislation. <\/p>\n

The beauty of USCAP was its inherent compromises, but if a climate bill is no longer a nascent reality, then companies like BP and Conoco have an obligation to shareholders to pursue their own best interests. It’s a shame Congress wasn’t able to act while it had them scared.

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BP, ConocoPhillips, and Caterpillar have dropped out of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the coalition of big business and environmental interests that launched three years ago with a dramatic letter to President Bush. USCAP was a marriage of convenience between groups like the Nature Conservancy that wanted a climate bill, and companies like Shell and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2670,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2670"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}