Scored evidence collected on an entity's engagement with land-use and circular economy policy will now be fully weighted into the final calculations for each entity's metrics. This follows a two year process where InfluenceMap has evolved its methodology to collect evidence on corporate and industry engagement with these key areas of climate-related policy.
We have strengthened the algorithm for discounting the impact older evidence on an organization's top-line metrics. Evidence from within the last two years is weighted the strongest and then gradually weighted out of the scoring calculations as it gets older. All evidence that is 5 years or older is completely removed from the scoring calculations. Users will still be able to view older evidence items that are archived the scoring matrix below, but these will not be impacting the organization's current scores.
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: The US Chamber of Commerce (the Chamber) demonstrates active opposition to US climate policy. While the Chamber appears supportive of 2050 climate targets and government action to respond to climate change in its top-line messaging, its direct engagement reveals consistently oppositional positions to specific climate policies, and a sustained effort to weaken the ambition of proposed regulations across multiple policy strands. The Chamber has advocated in support of specific fossil fuel projects, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and has actively opposed EPA’s power plant rules and proposed methane regulations.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: While the Chamber held skeptical and often negative positions on climate science and policy up until 2020, the association’s top-line positions on climate policy appear generally positive in recent years. In a June 2024 blog, the Chamber appeared to recognize the necessity of responding to climate change, calling on “government, businesses and households to invest in resilience” as climate change-induced weather events continue to escalate in frequency and severity. Another June 2024 blog highlighted the Chamber’s support for “private sector opportunities” provided by climate legislation such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. The Chamber appears broadly supportive of Paris Agreement goals, and was a signatory of the B7 Tokyo Summit Joint Recommendation in April 2023, calling on the G7 to “show leadership” and set ambitious pathways for countries to achieve their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) “with a view to achieving climate neutrality by 2050.”
The association’s top-line messaging significantly differs from its more detailed engagement, per the sections below.
Engagement with Climate-Related Policy: The Chamber has actively and consistently opposed various forms of climate policy. In March 2024 comments, the Chamber opposed the EPA’s use of the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (SC-GHG) to determine the value of climate-related benefits from methane emissions reductions, suggesting the Agency was acting beyond its statutory authority to implement the regulations. In October 2023 comments to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Chamber sought to reduce the stringency of proposed Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, arguing that “sustaining annual fuel efficiency improvements in 2027 at the pace proposed is unrealistic” and that the standards “go too far, too fast.” In June 2023 testimony by the Global Energy Institute (GEI), a subgroup of the US Chamber, GEI Vice President Heath Knakmuhs strongly opposed the EPA’s power plant rules, reiterating a similar message that the proposed regulations are “too much, too fast.” The Chamber went on to submit comments on the power plant rules in December 2023 suggesting that the regulations violate Section 111 of the Clean Air Act.
However, the Chamber appears more positively engaged on policy related to the circular economy. In July 2023 comments on the EPA’s Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution, the Chamber supported the use of the Waste Management Hierarchy to guide legislative development, as well as “leveraging the UN Global Plastics Pollution Agreement” to promote innovation on the use of virgin materials.
Positioning on Energy Transition: The Chamber appears most active on policy related to the energy transition, and has demonstrated consistently obstructive advocacy. The Chamber has been highly active on the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit in 2024: through several iterations of comments, coalition letters, and direct testimony, the Chamber has advocated for weaker implementation of the tax credit, calling for changes to the framework that would allow exemptions for the use of fossil gas as a hydrogen production feedstock. The Chamber has also been active on matters related to liquefied natural gas (LNG) policy, urging the Secretary of the Department of Energy to repeal restrictions on permits for LNG export facilities in a January 2024 coalition letter, and later calling on the Biden Administration to reverse its decision to pause exports in a March 2024 letter.
From 2022-23, the group has frequently advocated for permitting reform to facilitate the buildout of fossil fuel infrastructure. In May 2023, Chamber CEO Suzanne Clarke submitted a letter to Congress advocating for the permitting reform provisions in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, urging approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. In April 2023, the Chamber also submitted joint comments to the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) advocating for policymakers to rescind the Interim Guidance on considering GHG and climate impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and suggested that the CEQ is acting beyond its legal boundary.
While most of the Chamber’s energy-related advocacy is in the US, the group submitted a coalition letter to the Prime Minister of Japan in March 2023 directly advocating for new fossil fuel infrastructure.
InfluenceMap collects and assesses evidence of corporate climate policy engagement on a weekly basis, depending on the availability of information from each specific data source (for more information see our methodology). While this analysis flows through to the company’s scores each week, the summary above is updated periodically. This summary was last updated in Q3 2024.