The Chamber Pile-On

Ever since fissures over climate-change policy appeared within the business lobby group's membership earlier this year -- followed by a handful of high-profile defections -- a broadening array of opponents have stepped up their efforts to change or blunt the chamber's positions on a range of other issues, including health care reform and financial regulation. Apple, PG&E, Ex-elon, and PNM Resources -- have left the chamber over differences on climate-change legislation; another firm, Nike, resigned from the board; and a second board member, Duke Energy, has reduced its contributions to the chamber to signal the company's disapproval of the group's climate-change policy. ⢠The Center for Political Accountability, working with activist shareholder groups and money-management firms, has written to two dozen companies that are members of the chamber or the National Association of Manufacturers -- and is now contacting three dozen more members of either group -- urging the firms to underscore their differences with the trade groups on climate change by quitting or seeking a refund of fees spent to lobby the issue. ⢠Sixty members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which represents faith-based shareholder activists, have joined with the AFL-CIO's investment advisers and other money managers to ask three dozen companies to publicly state whether they agree with the chamber's opposition to health care reform legislation. ⢠MoveOn.org has asked medical professionals among its membership to petition the American Medical Association, which supports health care reform, to quit the chamber because of its stance. ⢠The union coalition Change to Win published a report last month criticizing chamber President Tom Donohue's oversight of corporations on whose boards he sits.