Three Big Firms Withdraw from Climate Change Lobbying Group

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3 big firms quit warming-bills lobbying group
Jennifer A. Dlouhy,Tom Fowler, Hearst Washington Bureau

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

(02-17) 04:00 PST Washington - --

Two of the nation's largest energy companies on Tuesday quit the lobbying alliance that has been the major force shaping anti-global warming legislation in Congress and claimed that the leading climate change bills don't do enough for oil and natural gas.

ConocoPhillips and BP joined machine manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. in withdrawing from the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, despite collaborating last year on a blueprint for capping carbon dioxide emissions blamed for contributing to global warming. That plan became the model for a climate change bill that passed the House last year and similar measures in the Senate.

The decision dealt a major blow to the USCAP alliance of more than two dozen businesses and environmental groups and could further slow already sluggish negotiations in the Senate on climate change.

The group used its lobbying heft to promote a government giveaway of valuable carbon dioxide emissions allowances designed to soften the business costs of complying with a new nationwide cap on greenhouse gases.

But ConocoPhillips and BP said leading climate change bills treated the oil and gas industry unfairly and did not recognize the role of natural gas in curbing greenhouse gas emissions nationwide. ConocoPhillips also had unsuccessfully pressed USCAP to put its lobbying weight behind a new plan for capping emissions from transportation fuels that would be kinder to refiners.

Oil industry leaders have complained that the House-passed bill would only donate 2 to 2.25 percent of those emissions allowances to refiners - an amount that would only cover about half of the annual emissions from the refining process, much less the emissions produced when consumers burn their fuels in cars, trucks and planes.
 
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Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/17/BU0M1C2BG8.DTL&feed=rss.business#ixzz0fusMc3EK

More rats deserting the good ship "Climate Change"

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