Thomas Donohue built the U.S. Chamber of Commerce into Washington's
biggest-spending lobbying group by seizing the opportunities of a pro-business,
Republican decade.
But as Washington tilts more Democratic, populist and green, some big companies
are becoming leery of allying too closely with conservative, antiregulatory
institutions such as the chamber. On issues such as climate change, Mr. Donohue
is finding his efforts countered by big corporations, several of them chamber
members, taking a more liberal public stance.
General Electric Co. has bucked the chamber in a fight over caps on
greenhouse-gas emissions. GE, with its strong power-equipment business, sees its
future in green energy.
All three presidential candidates say they want to cap greenhouse-gas emissions
and create a market for companies to trade pollution rights. The chamber and the
White House have been less enthusiastic, but at least eight powerful chamber
members -- including GE, Dow Chemical Co. and Alcoa Inc. -- have joined with
environmental groups to lobby for a "cap-and-trade" system favorable to them.
President Bush weighed in on the global warming issue Wednesday and proposed a
new target for ending the growth of the nation's greenhouse-gas emissions by
2025. Mr. Bush's new position is viewed by some as an attempt to influence
congressional debate and mitigate any legislation's toll on industry and the
economy.
"We are glad [Mr. Bush] is stepping into the breach on this issue in terms of
the need for a legislative fix," instead of a regulatory response, said Bruce
Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the chamber.
The debate over "cap and trade" is one of several issues that have sparked
dissent among chamber members. The chamber has also split with big companies
over a consumer-product safety bill now in Congress. Toy and appliance makers
supported stricter standards. The chamber and the National Association of
Manufacturers didn't.
Congressional Democrats are becoming more aggressive in challenging business
priorities, such as their move last week to sideline a free-trade deal with
Colombia. With Democrats poised to make further gains in Congress, retired
Marine Corps commandant Gen. James L. Jones, president and chief executive of
the chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy, said the chamber's "Republican
free-market philosophy" is due for fine-tuning. "You can't be simply seen as
leaning one way or the other," he said.
The chamber said its free-market stance will remain no matter who ends up in the
White House or Congress. While the group is backing pro-business candidates in
both parties, it is working to keep Democrats from gaining too much of an
advantage in November.
During Mr. Donohue's tenure, he has tripled the chamber's revenue. Based in a
regal stone building one block from the White House, the chamber has a global
footprint and a budget of $4 million a week.
When Mr. Donohue took the helm in 1997, the chamber was a sturdy but politically
weak antitax, antiregulatory voice of American business. Mr. Donohue, a former
president of the American Trucking Associations, took the job after persuading
the chamber to take stands even when powerful members disagreed.
"Every now and then you get a company that said, 'Well, if you don't do that,
we'll quit.' We say, 'So quit,'" Mr. Donohue said.
The chamber flexes its muscles through lobbying and campaign cash. The
300,000-member group plans to spend at least $20 million to support pro-business
congressional candidates this year and will spend another $20 million on state
attorneys-general races, Mr. Donohue said.
During the past four election cycles, the chamber's political action committee
has allocated 80% of its contributions to Republicans, according to the Center
for Responsive Politics. But in 2008, reports show a shift -- still slight --
toward Democrats.
Many chamber members say they value the organization's bipartisan work on
intellectual property, tax and education, as well as its campaign for
infrastructure improvement. The group has also worked to establish pro-business
legal precedents in the federal courts.
To build support before taking a stand on an issue, the chamber usually convenes
affected members for an internal debate, "rather than have all those debates
publicly going up to the Hill, which is confusing to everybody," said the
chamber's Mr. Josten.
Climate change, however, has put divisions within the chamber's base on public
display.
The chamber has formed a group with big oil, gas and coal-mining interests to
oppose a proposal to cap greenhouse-gas emissions sponsored by Sen. Joseph
Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and Sen. John Warner, a Virginia
Republican. Mr. Josten, who serves as spokesman for the group, called the
Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth, said the bill would harm the economy
and make no impact on global warming if foreign countries such as China don't
curb emissions, too.
The chamber has posted two ads on YouTube questioning the climate bill. One
shows Americans sleeping in winter scarves, cooking over candles and walking to
work, saying "climate legislation being considered by Congress could make it too
expensive to heat our homes, power our lives and drive our cars."
The chamber's public stance "makes it more difficult for the authors of the
legislation to go to environmentalists and defend those accommodations to
industry," said David McIntosh, a legislative assistant to Sen. Lieberman.
Mr. Donohue said the chamber isn't inflexibly opposed to action on greenhouse
gases. "We are positively committed to dealing with the global-warming issue in
a vigorous, expensive and passionate way," he said.