LEGISLATION: An army of climate lobbyists hits the ground, meters running (06/03/2008)
Christa Marshall, ClimateWire reporter
As climate change legislation heads toward its first votes on the Senate floor, hundreds of lobbyists are stalking the hallways, weighing every nuance, watching to protect their clients from potentially damaging amendments and ready to parse any last-minute changes in the far-reaching legislation.
Environmental groups, steel manufacturers, oil companies, solar panel makers, utilities, local governments, carbon offset providers and agricultural associations all have been lobbying members of Congress in the prelude to debate on the bill sponsored by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.).
The groups often represent competing interests and reflect a diverse swath of the economy, setting the stage for what could be a two-year congressional battle about who might win or lose under a potential carbon cap-and-trade system. Some have paid six-figure amounts to lobbying firms in the first three months of the year to ensure their voices are not drowned out during the complex debate.
"What we're talking about is unleashing new market forces that would encourage a new type of energy economy," said Katherine Hamilton of Ecosystem Marketplace, an environmental commodities research group.
The number of lobbyists listing climate change on documents filed with the U.S. Senate jumped to 385 in 2007 from mere double digits two years earlier, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That number leaves out countless companies and groups choosing not to put the issue voluntarily on required federal documents.
Who's Hiring Lobbyists on Climate Change
A random sample of companies and organizations lobbying on climate change according to documents filed with the U.S. Senate as of May 30, 2008. For a more complete list, click here.
• Arsenal Capital Partners, private equity firm
• Carbon Offset Providers Coalition, trade group for developers and sellers of carbon offset credits
• Carmeuse North America, manufacturer of lime and limestone products
• Climate Communities, coalition of local governments interested in federal climate change policy
• Covanta Energy Corp., energy-from-waste facilities
• Exxon Mobil Corp., oil and gas company
• First Solar Inc., manufacturer of photovoltaic modules
• Friends of the Earth, environmental advocacy nonprofit organization
• Julian Robertson, philanthropist
• Missouri Farm Bureau Federation, group representing the interests of Missouri farmers and ranchers
• Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, representing companies in the property/casualty insurance market
• Wal-Mart, retailer
Source: CQ MoneyLine data
It includes many new faces who registered as lobbyists for the first time. One of them is Garrett Screws, who represents Novozymes North America Inc., an industrial enzyme producer headquartered in North Carolina.
Novozymes is following the Senate climate legislation closely because the company provides enzymes that help reduce greenhouse gases to companies such as detergent manufacturers. According to Screws, enzymes also could play a potential role in carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that envisions capturing greenhouse gases from power plants and injecting them into geological formations.
Then there is Douglas Wheeler, a lobbyist for private equity firm Arsenal Capital Partners, an investor in companies that produce R-134a automotive refrigerant, a product sold at auto supply stores. He wants to make sure a just-added provision to the Lieberman-Warner bill allowing continued sale of the refrigerant -- which some opponents believe contributes to global warming -- makes it through the legislative process.
An industry risks oblivion from one subsection
"The bill as originally written would have banned R-134a and destroyed an entire industry," Wheeler said. "It showed how one provision can have inadvertent adverse effects on large numbers of people."
Many companies are lobbying singly in addition to joining multiple coalitions to hedge their bets. The dollar amounts floating around often are impressive.
The U.S. Climate Action Partnership -- a group of businesses and environmental groups calling for national legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- paid Lighthouse Consulting Group $190,000 in the first quarter of 2008 for lobbying services, federal documents show.
Sustainable Forestry Management, a supporter of forestry-based carbon credits, doled out $100,000 to Covington & Burling LLP during the same timeframe. Exxon Mobil Corp. paid $40,000 in the first quarter to Cloud & Co., citing "climate change and related issues" as its specific focus with that lobbyist.
Many experts contend that the economic factors surrounding climate change cause it to stand alone among environmental issues, which typically have witnessed two-sided lobbying disputes between polluters and clean air and water advocates (ClimateWire, May 27).
Others, such as electric utility lobbyist Scott Segal, argue that past debates often aligned business interests -- such as power plant scrubber manufacturers benefiting from regulation -- with environmental advocates.
"Climate change is unusual in its scale" but similar to past environmental issues in the monetary motivations of many of its players, he said.
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