Blueprint Lays Out Clear Path for Climate Action

Leading firms and environmental groups unveil breakthrough plan for cap and trade legislation

Posted: 08-May-2007; Updated: 20-Apr-2009

Blueprint Lays Out Clear Path for Climate Action

At a coalition press conference in 2007: EDF President Fred Krupp, with (from left) NRDC President Frances Beinecke; Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers; and DuPont CEO Chad Holliday. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

More About the Coalition

USCAP coalition web site
Coalition's blueprint for action:

CORPORATIONS
Alcan
Alcoa
American International Group
Boston Scientific
BP America
Caterpillar
Chrysler
ConocoPhillips
Deere & Co.
Dow Chemical Co.
Duke Energy
DuPont
Exelon Corporation
Ford Motor Co.
FPL Group (Florida Power & Light)
General Electric
General Motors Corp.
Johnson & Johnson
Marsh Inc.
NRG Energy, Inc.
Pacific Gas & Electric
PepsiCo
PNM Resources
Rio Tinto
Shell
Siemens Corp.
Xerox Corporation
ADVOCACY ORGANIZATIONS
Environmental Defense Fund
Natural Resources Defense Council
The Nature Conservancy
Pew Center on Global Climate Change
World Resources Institute

In a powerful catalyst for action on Capitol Hill, Environmental Defense Fund and a broad coalition of major companies and nonprofits announced a groundbreaking new blueprint for climate legislation. The detailed plan will jump-start economic recovery with a cap on global warming pollution.

"This is an Obama-era blueprint — business and environmentalists working together for a bold, practical solution, and that solution is a cap,” said EDF president Fred Krupp.

Krupp joined coalition CEOs to deliver testimony before Congress at the first major climate hearing of the year in the House, convened by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), and to offer details about the blueprint. President–elect Obama has pledged to cut U.S. global warming pollution 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Landmark climate plan in the works for two years

The coalition of industry and environmental groups — the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) — was co-founded by EDF in 2007. It now includes 31 leading corporations and national environmental groups covering a broad cross-section of industries including manufacturing, utilities, chemical production and automakers.

Two years in the making, the USCAP blueprint represents a consensus agreement on the design of comprehensive climate legislation among a wide spectrum of interests. USCAP is calling on Congress and the incoming administration to pass a cap and trade bill as soon as possible.

USCAP now represents nearly $2 trillion in revenue, nearly three million workers, operations in every state and nearly every country in the world.

Blueprint specifics: Cap on pollution is key

The centerpiece of the USCAP blueprint is a mandatory and declining economy-wide cap on global warming pollution from electric utilities, transportation fuels and industrial facilities. It calls for aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reductions with targets and timelines in line with President-elect Barack Obama’s proposals.

Key is the pollution cap, which sets a hard limit on pollution and guarantees that pollution goes down. It will mobilize private capital for innovation to build the clean energy technologies needed to solve climate change. That in turn will spark new jobs and revitalize the economy.

Key elements of the USCAP blueprint for legislative action include:

aggressive emission reductions targets and timelines that follow the science, including an 80 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2050;
mechanisms to manage costs without undermining environmental goals; and
provisions to address economic impacts on consumers.

Unprecedented corporate action to find green solution

Never before have industry leaders lined up so solidly with environmental advocates to solve an environmental problem. Attesting to the group's forward-thinking ideas and influence on climate action are the following quotes from 2007, starting when the group's formed:

Fred Krupp, EDF president: "With this lineup of companies and environmental groups endorsing it, a carbon cap is clearly the consensus solution to climate change With cap and trade, we’ve found the center — environmental groups and businesses can embrace because it guarantees results for the climate while freeing companies to hunt for innovative, least-cost ways to lower emissions."

"We chose a cap-and-trade approach because it guarantees the emissions cuts we need, while it unleashes cash and creativity from the private sector. This plan is a jobs winner as well as an environmental winner."

Senator John Warner (R-VA) noted USCAP's role in helping bring the issue of climate change into the "big leagues." "When I see such an extraordinary cross-section of America's free-enterprise system, together with the environmental groups, come and form a group like this, you've got my attention," said Warner.

Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) said in a meeting with Environmental Defense Fund: "Continue to expand USCAP. Each new economic sector added to USCAP melts away pockets of opposition in Congress."

Alan Mulally, President and CEO of Ford Motor Company: "We are pleased to join USCAP at a critical stage in the conversation on climate change, energy consumption and environmental protection. We all recognize it is time for action..".

Tom LaSorda, President and CEO, Chrysler Group, concurred, "Now is the time for advancing a national approach to climate change where all of us — individuals, industry and government — take action toward reducing emissions of greenhouse gases."

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