Another sign of growing support among businesses that want meaningful climate legislation: The United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) is announcing that Weyerhauser, one of the world’s largest forest products companies, is joining the business-enviro coalition pushing for clean energy and climate legislation.
The addition comes at a time when climate legislation is once again on the political radar screens. As Shell Oil Chairman Marvin Odum recently wrote in the Houston Chronicle,
"We are closer to, not further from, enacting climate and energy legislation ...By working together, stakeholders, both individually and through organizations like USCAP, can set the course for comprehensive energy and environmental legislation that puts us on a path to a secure and sustainable energy future."
Business support for climate legislation extends well beyond USCAP. The broad-based American Businesses for Clean Energy, a list of companies from all sectors and of all sizes that support comprehensive climate legislation, passed the 2,600 mark yesterday.
And We Can Lead just finished up its three-week "Race for American Jobs" to "drive home the enormous economic benefits of comprehensive climate and energy legislation."
The New Hampshire Business Review reported that "N.H. execs back climate bill," quoting Michael Skelton, vice president of the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce spoke in support of clean energy legislation, who said
Businesspeople are starting to see green practices as an economic issue that saves money and creates jobs.
That statement really sums up why more and more businesses recognize the importance of Congressional action on climate. As the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, the White House is hearing and relaying the message that
Investors are so uncertain about the future cost of emitting greenhouse gases that they are sitting on capital rather than pouring it into “clean” technology, new power plants or energy-intensive manufacturing.
This is a point Kevin Walsh, managing director of power and renewable energy at GE Energy Financial Services, emphasized in the same story:
People need to realize this is a global market for our capital. Our money is going to go where we see long-term certainty … and if Europe has a better framework, that’s where our money’s going to go.
If the U.S. is to compete globally in clean energy, Congress needs to get us in the race.