Last year, Google made headlines for ending support for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The group provides model legislation to conservative legislators in hopes that they will pass the bills at the state and federal levels. One of the causes is climate change, but in an unusual twist, ALEC states that climate change will be one of the main causes Good thing. In dropping support, Google chairman (and former CEO) Eric Schmidt accused the group of “just literally lying.” Facebook, Yelp and Yahoo, among others, followed Google out the door; Microsoft dropped support earlier.
Now the National Magazine has found that fossil fuel giant BP is also dropping support for ALEC. This is the second departure of an oil and gas company; Occidental Petroleum exited ALEC last year. It is in line with BP’s public position. Carl Henric Svanberg, BP’s chairman, has called for a carbon tax and the company has invested heavily in advertising designed to bolster its green credentials.
Not all of BP seems to be on board, however. During the weekend, The protector reported that BP’s Political Action Committee, funded by company executives, supported the re-election campaign of Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), now the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Inhofe thinks climate change is a hoax and even goes so far as to write a book on the subject The biggest hoax. He has already thrown a snowball on the Senate floor to argue that the winter chill on the US East Coast suggests that climate science is in error, even as the rest of the planet is experiencing record high temperatures.
ALEC is plowing through draft legislation that would do everything from block specific emissions regulations to simply dismantle the EPA to prevent action on its part.
This story has been updated to reflect the correct title of Eric Schmidt’s Chairman of the Board at Google, not CEO.