By Steve Thomas, Johnson Controls

Big news in Chicago at this week’s American Council on an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) National Conference on Energy Efficiency as a Resource: Exelon Chairman and CEO John Rowe announced that his company will join the growing number of companies dropping out of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of that organization’s position on climate change regulation. The Chamber has opposed climate legislation approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and the EPA’s plan to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Rowe also expressed frustration with both the Chamber and Republicans in Congress for backing away from Cap and Trade, which he called a "rational, market-based solution." Regarding legislation in Congress, he added "we have got to have this bill to get an energy efficiency market and to get incentives for the lowest cost solutions first."

In a statement issued later, Rowe said, “The carbon-based free lunch is over,” as he called for the U.S. government to establish climate change policy sooner rather than later so companies can determine how much it will cost them to curb their emissions.

Recently, Pacific Gas & Electric (California’s largest utility) and PNM Resources (which operates New Mexico’s biggest power producer) also withdrew from the national chamber. Nike and Johnson & Johnson criticized the chamber’s positions, but opted to remain as members of the business lobbying group.

It is not known if these high-profile defections will have an impact on the Chamber’s position. What is clear, however, is that there are major disagreements in the business community over climate change and what to do about it. And those disagreements are almost certain to heat up in the face of mounting pressures for the U.S. government to do something about climate change as the summit in Copenhagen nears.

Comments

Interesting that Excelon, PG&E and others have opted out of the US Chamber of Commerce based on that organizations laggard stance on Climate Change. Not surprising as both of those companies as well as others in which John Rowe has had a prominent role have long been at the head of the pack of companies figuring out how to remain profitable while encouraging energy efficiency and otherwise working against climate change. Seeing as addressing climate change in a similarly progressive fashion and profiting from its building and vehicle efficiency businesses is central to its overall market strategies, will Johnson Controls consider joining Excelon and the others who have chosen to leave the US Chamber?

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Name:
Email Address:
URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)