The coalition is fading fast

It hasn’t been well-publicized but over the last week three corporations withdrew their membership from the U.S. Climate Action Partnership – Conoco, BP America, and Caterpillar cut ties with the group in the wake of recent questions about the accuracy of the data used to support manmade global warming.

As Myron Ebell from the Competitive Enterprise Institute noted:

In dropping out of the U. S. Climate Action Partnership, BP America, Conoco Phillips, and Caterpillar are recognizing that cap-and-trade legislation is dead in the U. S. Congress and that global warming alarmism is collapsing rapidly.  We hope that other major corporations will soon see the light and drop their support for cap-and-trade and other energy-rationing legislation. 

These announcements are most welcome, but they do not mean that we can relax our efforts to defeat and roll back energy-rationing legislation and regulations.  Many policies and proposals that would raise energy prices through the roof for American consumers and destroy millions of jobs in energy-intensive industries still pose a huge threat.  These include the EPA’s decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act, environmental pressure group efforts to use the Endangered Species Act to stop energy production and new power plants, the higher fuel economy standards for new passenger vehicles enacted in 2007, presidential executive orders, and bills in Congress to require more renewable electricity, higher energy efficiency standards for buildings, and low carbon transportation fuel standards.

Worthy of note that the three dropouts are two energy companies and a heavy equipment manufacturer, companies which would likely be in favor of alternative energy if they felt it were a profitable way to go.

Frankly, I was a little surprised to see my friend Jane Van Ryan downplay the withdrawal of two energy companies given her closeness to the situation. Then again, she points out that the unraveling of the climate change hoax is happening on many levels – everything from record cold and snowfall across the country to “hiding the decline” to the legislative failures both she and Ebell point out.

Yet big corporations are keen about shifting sides in a debate when they sense they’re no longer on the winning side. Most Americans don’t mind the occasional recycling program and taking other steps to protect the environment – that is until they feel compliance switches from voluntary to mandatory, as it would for cap and tax and other government mandates. As you’ll see Sunday (can you say foreshadowing?) the Audi “green police” commercial hit close to home because it’s just believable enough to be discomforting.

In the meantime, this may be a good opportunity to reward these companies for their farsightedness and belief in capitalism. Certainly they’re still going to have their lobbyists bending the ears of federal and state legislators, but at least in this way they have determined that government won’t be the solution to the problem.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.