The news:
...Nike announced (pdf) that it is resigning from the board of directors because of the group's views on climate change policy. The Chamber was already in a tailspin this week, attempting to reclassify their position on climate policy following the departure of three major utilities.
"Nike believes US businesses must advocate for aggressive climate change legislation and that the United States needs to move rapidly into a sustainable economy to remain competitive and ensure continued economic growth," Nike said in a statement. "As we've stated, we fundamentally disagree with the US Chamber of Commerce on the issue of climate change and their recent action challenging the EPA is inconsistent with our view that climate change is an issue in need of urgent action."
(And wouldn't it be interesting to investigate whether similar splits exist in the Montana CoC?)
Meanwhile, in the wake of members abandoning the organization, the US Chamber of Commerce denies ever questioning the science behind global warming. Surprise! That is, of course, a lie.
Meanwhile, Sens. Kerry and Boxer unveiled their version of cap-and-trade legislation today. Its targeted carbon emissions levels are actually more aggressive than the House Waxman-Markey bill, which implies that some Democratic Senators, at least, learned lessons from how the healthcare reform strategy worked.
The split among the ranks of Chamber of Commerce members, too, makes the battle lines a bit murky. Will the bill pit the monolithic and anachronistic energy industry against the nation's more forward-thinking corporations? Who knows? I thought America's industries might push harder on public insurance in the healthcare debate - certainly our system's reliance on employer-provided insurance is a drag on most sectors of our economy - maybe folks should remember that these problems don't belong to a single economic sector, they belong to us all... |
