7gen Bloc
The Voice of Progressive Business Rocks the Capital
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In an unprecedented blitz on Washington DC, progressive business leaders met with 51 senators and talked with senior White House officials this week about how to move cap and trade climate legislation, now called The American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009, through the Senate. The day started in the White House with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, former EPA head and current Energy "czarina" Carol Browner, and Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President. It was almost bizarre to be sitting inside the White House surrounded by brilliant people who are so passionate about the issues we care about most instead of demonstrating with them outside.
White House officials spoke about our need to, "lead the next industrial and energy revolution," and noted that, "the days of externalizing the costs of fossil fuels are over."
I was proud to represent a multitude of groups from Seventh Generation to CERES, BICEP, and the newly created American Sustainable Business Council that have come together under the banner "We Can Lead."
While many participants lobbied their respective senators, my own delegation, Vermont's Senators Leahy and Sanders, has led the charge in support of the bill, and so all I could offer them was our thanks. But we were able to discuss the business case for regulating CO2 emissions with many others who are still sitting on the fence.
Senators on both sides of the aisle have also have taken great notice of the many major businesses that have been defecting from the ranks of the Chamber of Commerce over that organization's irrational position on the cap and trade bill in particular and global climate change in general. Thomas Freidman recently noted that, "the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, having sold its soul to the old coal and oil industries, uses its influence to prevent Congress from passing legislation to really spur renewables. Hats off to the courageous chairman of Pacific Gas and Electric, Peter Darbee, who last week announced that his huge California power company was quitting the chamber because of its 'obstructionist tactics.' All shareholders in America should ask their C.E.O.'s why they still belong to the chamber."
Following that defection, Apple Computer, Chicago-based Exelon, and New Mexico-based PNM Resources Inc. all stated their intention to leave the chamber and NIKE resigned its position on the board of directors, all promising developments that give me hope that the change we seek may come to our salvation after all.
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This is great news that the discussion is occurring at this level. There are other ways that we as individual Americans can have influence.
1) Holding corporations responsible for considering the whole picture of costs of doing business, rather than privatizing profits and socializing the costs. Jim Jubak wrote a great blog piece on externalities about a week ago or so. You can read it here.
2) For anyone who has a 401(k) or invests and wants their money to support enterprises that are socially responsible, check out www.sri-advisor.com. It'll direct you to investment companies that screen the companies in their portfolios for responsibility criteria. If we move in this direction, companies seeking investors will have to comply.