Oil majors BP and ConocoPhilips quit US climate lobby group

17 February 2010

Oil and gas majors BP and ConocoPhilips have announced they will leave the lobby group US Climate Action partnership (US CAP), which has been instrumental in steering climate change legislation that proposes a universal carbon cap-and-trade scheme.

The global energy firms, alongside mining equipment giant Caterpillar, said they will not renew their memberships in the coalition of corporations and environmental groups casting fresh doubt on whether the US climate bill will be approved by the US Senate.

The companies said they supported plans to move towards a green economy but felt the proposed laws were unfair to the petroleum industry, AFP reports.
US CAP has been active in lobbying for changes in climate legislation that would limit emissions from all industrial sectors.

The bill, a key aim of US president Barack Obama’s administration, was passed in the House of Representatives in June 2009 but has since faced opposition in the Senate.

US CAP said that its members do change periodically and in the past seven months AES, Alstom and Honeywell have all joined the coalition.

Other members also include Shell, Rio Tinto and Duke Energy and new members are expected to be added in the coming months, US CAP said.

ConocoPhilips CEO and chairman Jim Mulva said that the proposed laws ignore the critical role natural gas can play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, unfairly penalised domestic refineries versus international competition and have disadvantaged the transport sector, AFP reports.

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Tags: climate change

This story was published on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 12:45 pm and is filed under North America, companies, energy efficiency. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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