• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Small U.S. Businesses Join Major Companies in Pushing for Climate and Energy Bill Action

Posted on: Wednesday, 13 May 2009, 12:49 CDT

Thousands of Small Business Owners Merge with BICEP, USCAP, Other Global Businesses in Calling for Bold Clean Energy Policies in 2009

WASHINGTON, May 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Small business support for strong climate and energy legislation from Congress this year merged forcefully today with widespread existing support from dozens of major U.S. businesses.

MoveOn.org announced that nearly 10,000 small business leaders nationwide signed a statement urging the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to stop lobbying against President Obama's plan for clean energy jobs, and support strong climate and energy policies the administration seeks such as the Waxman/Markey bill now before the House. MoveOn reports that more than 600 of its signatories are Chamber members themselves.

Today's statement comes as several major companies that are part of the U.S. Chamber have publicly challenged Chamber leadership for misrepresenting their views by opposing strong climate and clean energy policies. (see below).

In fact, a very large number of America's biggest businesses now favor strong climate and energy legislation:

• Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), a coalition coordinated by Ceres, has publicly endorsed core principles of the Waxman/Markey bill and released its own strong guidelines. The coalition includes Nike, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems, Levi Strauss, Symantec and a half-dozen other global consumer companies.
• A second group of major businesses, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership(USCAP), also supports pollution reduction targets, carbon caps and immediate steps to improve energy efficiency and boost clean energy. There are differences with BICEP over how far and fast to go - but not over the need to get there.
• Regarding the large segment of major U.S. Chamber members that BACK strong climate and energy legislation: See Slate Magazine's "Climate Change Schizophrenia" (4/21/09) http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2009/04/20/climate-change-schizophrenia and Politico's "Chamber Under Fire on Warming" (5/5/09) http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22101.html

Business support for passing strong climate and energy legislation this year is quite strong. Reporters interested in speaking with these companies can use the contact information below for BICEP and MoveOn.org, or contact USCAP directly. We urge you to let the above-mentioned members of the business community tell you more.

To reach BICEP members call Steve Tripoli at Ceres, 617-247-0700, ext. 155. Ceres is the largest coalition of investors, environmental and public interest organizations in North America and coordinator of the BICEP coalition, www.ceres.org/bicep. For information about BICEP's specific climate and energy policy goals visit that website and click on "Read more about our principles..."

BICEP members include Levi Strauss & Co., Nike, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems, The Timberland Co., eBay, Gap Inc., Symantec, Clif Bar & Company, Seventh Generation and Aspen Skiing Company.

For information about MoveOn.org's small business campaign contact Emma

Mackinnon at (202) 302-6920.

SOURCE Ceres

Source: PR Newswire

More News in this Category