After the Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) lobbied the White House to abandon the Paris climate accord because it disadvantaged U.S. manufacturers, it lost a leading member. And Eastman Chemical Company and the IECA aren’t the only companies and associations finding themselves on opposite sides of the issue.
“While we valued the IECA’s work in areas unrelated to climate change,” David Golden, a senior Eastman vice president and sustainability chief wrote to a human rights group, “the organization’s action [on Paris] is so at odds with Eastman’s position that we cannot reconcile continued participation in IECA with our commitment to sustainability. As such, we discontinued our IECA membership.”
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Eastman wasn’t alone in its discomfort with its industry lobby’s stand. The company’s departure “highlights the rift that has developed in the American business community over Trump’s decision to exit the Paris accord,” the Washington Post writes. “Many large consumer-facing companies, like Apple, Gap, and Levi’s, asked the Trump administration to remain in the climate agreement that is largely popular with its employees and customers.”
Owens Corning and International Paper have also put themselves “at arm’s length from IECA” and its anti-Paris activism. “We were not involved in the development of the letter [lobbying the administration against Paris] and do not agree with the organization’s decision to send it,” International Paper stated.
In 2012, corporate donors fled the Heartland Institute after it ran billboard ads equating people who believe the science of climate change with “murderers, tyrants, and madmen” like the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.
More recently, “over 80 companies left the American Legislative Exchange Council, which similarly opposes any climate-based regulation,” observed Gregory Regaignon, research director at the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre. “While some were mum about their reasons, Google, Enterprise, Shell, Unilever, Wal-Mart, and others were explicit that they left over disagreement with ALEC’s policies such as opposition to climate-based regulation, to vote-suppressing voter ID laws, and other worker rights, health care, and public safety laws.”
