The Business Roundtable’s climate plan was killed by its arch-rival, the Business Roundtable
If only Apple, Pepsi, Walmart and Google knew someone at the lobbying shop they own.
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Three years ago to the date, the Business Roundtable unveiled its “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation” — a commitment by its 200 member-CEOs and companies to protect the environment. Then they spent three years and millions of dollars lobbying against that goal.
Writing in The Guardian, Adam Lowenstein rounds up the Business Roundtable’s deep-pocketed, highly effective lobbying campaign, which has crushed numerous climate initiatives in the US, possibly dooming the human race to extinction.
The Roundtable bills itself as “an association of CEOs of leading US companies working to promote a thriving economy & expanded opportunity for all Americans through sound public policy.” Its members include the CEOs of the country’s most politically connected corporations, including Apple, Pepsi, Walmart and Google — the most powerful people in the nation.
But while the Roundtable continues to trumped its commitment to addressing the climate emergency, it has mobilized millions of dollars to neutralize our best hopes of dealing with that emergency. The Roundtable’s initiatives include spending millions lobbying against Build Back Better and its carbon reduction/clean energy provisions.
The Roundtable has gone to war against a SEC rule requiring publicly listed companies to disclose their carbon emissions and risks from climate change. Instead, the Roundtable prefers “voluntary” disclosures that allow companies to omit emissions and risks in their supply chains. The Roundtable has met with the SEC three times to oppose this rule, and Roundtable chairman Mary Barra (CEO of GM) personally met with SEC chair Gary Gensler.
In the first half of 2022, the Roundtable’s lobbying budget was $9.1m, much of which went to…
