USCAP Statement on Membership Changes Misleads Public

The following is a statement from Tom Borelli, Ph.D., director of the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project:

Yesterday’s press release from the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) misled the public by failing to disclose that in addition to losing BP, Caterpillar and ConocoPhillips, the lobbying group lost Marsh, Inc. and Xerox from its ranks. Marsh and Xerox were listed as members in Congressional testimony in January 2009.

USCAP’s effort to put a happy face on its crumbling organization is laughable. While touting new members, USCAP forgot to tell the public that it lost Marsh and Xerox from its lobbying effort.

USCAP is collapsing as fast as the prospects of passing cap-and-trade legislation. USCAP’s slanted view of its organization and its inaccurate portrayal of the economic impact of cap-and-trade is as biased as the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Nobel Prize winning report on global warming. Economic studies on cap-and-trade consistently show the legislation will increase energy prices and slow growth both of which are job killers.

General Motors and Chrysler, despite their bankruptcies, remain as USCAP members.

It’s outrageous that taxpayer-owned companies such as General Motors and Chrysler are dues-paying members of a lobbying outfit. With GM and Chrysler, we have government-owned companies lobbying the government for policies that will make our country less competitive. It’s no wonder everyday Americans are becoming Tea Party activists.

The National Center for Public Policy Research issued another press release, “President Obama’s Cap-and-Trade Policy Takes Another Hit,” on USCAP’s membership troubles earlier today. The National Center for Public Policy Research (https://nationalcenter.org) is a non-profit, free-market think tank established in 1982 and funded primarily by the gifts of over 100,000 recent individual contributors. Less than one percent of the National Center’s funding comes from corporate sources.



The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.