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Corporate America is stepping up to support COVID-19 relief but its trade association is blocking a critical tool

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As the COVID-19 pandemic exposes critical medical equipment shortages within our health system, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association have called for the White House to immediately use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to produce and distribute much needed Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and ventilators. Yet the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest lobbying spender in the country and trade association of many leading companies, has inexplicably lobbied the White House against the administration’s use of the DPA, which would enable the government to quickly accelerate the production of necessary medical equipment.

In response to the current COVID-19 pandemic, many companies are taking actions to meet these dangerous equipment shortages. Yet, many of these same companies belong to the Chamber and give it millions in payments that the Chamber then uses to lobby, as it has done here, against actively and comprehensively utilizing the DPA. Investors are asking many of these companies for expanded lobbying disclosure and highlighting reputational risks when the lobbying of trade associations contradicts company public positions at upcoming shareholder meetings, including Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie, Boeing, Citigroup, Honeywell and Pfizer.

The Chamber’s recent actions have received negative press scrutiny:

Trump is bending to big business during a pandemic, and Americans are worse off for it.
– Now This
Trump has refused to invoke the act because big business doesn’t want him to.
– New York Magazine
If enough member companies spoke out against the Chamber’s lobbying, it would have to stop… Google is also an active member of the Chamber, and the Chamber is blocking action that could marshal the resources of numerous companies to produce this equipment. If Google spoke out against the Chamber’s lobbying, it would create enormous pressure on the Chamber to shift course.
– Popular Information

Senators have called for “the Chamber to cease their lobbying efforts against measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic and place the economic and public health needs of hundreds of millions of American families above its members.” Additionally, major unions have condemned the Chamber’s actions. Finally, a report released by unions and advocacy groups calls on companies that are members of the Chamber to publicly call for the full use of the Defense Production Act.

Why is the Chamber, one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington D.C., lobbying against the use of an act that gives broad authority to increase the manufacturing output of lifesaving equipment in a national emergency? While we wait for a definitive answer on their lobbying against the DPA, the Chamber has a long track record of lobbying against the broader interests of many of its corporate members.

For example, many of the Chambers corporate members individually support efforts to combat climate change and the Paris Climate Accord, yet the Chamber, on behalf of its members, has consistently lobbied against effective climate change regulations. A similar schism occurs on the issue of tobacco and public health, where many Chamber companies are committed to advancing patient health and well-being, yet the Chamber has worked to block global anti-smoking laws. On the issue of a minimum wage the Chamber appears to be out of sync with its members again. The Chamber claims to represent the interests of more than 3 million businesses and yet, while 80 percent of small business support raising the minimum wage, the Chamber is opposed to raising it.

These are just three examples where the Chamber has pushed for a harmful, deregulatory corporate agenda that goes against the public positions of many of its members and appears to be aligned only with the small number of companies that are its largest contributors. Do Chamber member companies really oppose the use of a law that is needed to address the acute shortage of personal protection equipment and ventilators that hospitals and front-line workers are facing? With the impact of the pandemic reaching every corner of America and across the globe, it’s incomprehensible that anyone — including corporate lobbyists for the Chamber — would block the use of employing every tool available to fight the disease and save as many lives as possible.

Investors Seek Disclosure of Lobbying at Citigroup, Pfizer, Abbott, Honeywell, Boeing and AbbVie, Highlighting Chamber Pandemic Lobbying Misalignment

Amidst this focus on the Chamber’s ongoing opposition to the DPA, shareholder proposals asking for lobbying disclosure will be going to vote at upcoming shareholder meetings at many companies that belong to the Chamber or sit on its board. These proposals at Citigroup, Pfizer, Abbott, Honeywell, Boeing and AbbVie ask the companies to disclose board oversight for lobbying and all federal and state lobbying expenditures, including disclosing all payments used by the Chamber for lobbying.

A major concern for investors is when indirect company lobbying through a company’s trade associations directly contradicts the company’s public positions.

On the one hand, these companies are working to speed production of ventilators and respirators to respond to COVID-19. Yet on the other, their trade association is blocking effective use of the DPA that is sorely needed to address the pandemic.

Exempt solicitations filed in support of the resolutions specifically highlight this contradiction and the reputational risk for companies from these types of trade association lobbying misalignments.

April 21 – Citigroup

Citigroup is providing $15 million in COVID-19 related relief efforts and supports “efforts to act swiftly, proactively and aggressively to mitigate the impacts of this situation.” The shareholder proposal filed by the New Economy Project notes that Citigroup supported the Paris Agreement on climate change, but the Chamber has worked to undermine it. The exempt solicitation states that “by funding a trade association’s lobbying, Citigroup is effectively endorsing its lobbying positions,” while also highlighting the pandemic as “another disturbing example of the conflict between Citigroup’s stated commitments and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s lobbying.”

April 23 – Pfizer

Pfizer is calling on the biopharmaceutical industry to join it in committing to unprecedented collaboration to combat COVID-19. The shareholder proposal filed by Oxfam notes that Pfizer sits on the boards of both the Chamber and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which together have spent over $1.9 billion on lobbying since 1998, yet fails to disclose how much of its Chamber and PhRMA payments are used for lobbying. Oxfam’s exempt solicitation notes that Pfizer believes in addressing climate change, but the Chamber undermined the Paris climate accord, thereby creating important misalignments on one of the defining issues of our time. It further notes a similar misalignment in the Chamber’s responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

April 24 – Abbott Laboratories

Abbott is producing and distributing rapid point-of-care COVID-19 tests and “working 24/7 to make as many tests as we can and create the next round of needed tests.” However, it also serves on the Chamber board of directors. The shareholder proposal filed by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) notes that Abbott believes in addressing climate change and supports good health, yet the Chamber undermined the Paris climate accord and has worked to block global antismoking laws. UUA’s exempt solicitation also notes that Abbott signed the Business Roundtable Statement (BRT) on the Purpose of the Corporation to be socially responsible, yet the BRT is lobbying to limit the right of shareholders to file resolutions.

April 27 – Honeywell

Honeywell has committed to increasing production of N95 respirators and other personal protection equipment in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic, yet also serves on the Chamber board of directors. The shareholder proposal filed by Mercy Investment Services notes that Honeywell is committed to reducing global greenhouse gases and signed an agreement to work with United Nations Environment to combat climate change, yet the Chamber undermined the Paris climate accord. Mercy’s exempt solicitation highlights the Chamber COVID-19 misalignment and points out that shareholders “face a trade association blind spot as Honeywell fails to disclose its trade association memberships.”

April 27 – Boeing

Boeing is assisting COVID-19 recovery and relief efforts, including manufacturing much needed face shields, yet is a member of the Chamber. The shareholder proposal filed by the Province of Saint Joseph of the Capuchin Order notes that “in the wake of the two 737 Max jet crashes, questions have been raised whether Boeing’s lobbying led to relaxed Federal Aviation Administration oversight, including ‘long-standing concerns about industry capture of the FAA, from lobbying by the aerospace industry—Boeing spends millions lobbying Congress and federal agencies each year—to the revolving door between the FAA and Boeing and other companies and lobbying groups in the industry.’” The exempt shareholder solicitation states that “Boeing needs to repair its tarnished reputation and can show its commitment to rehabilitating its image and culture by more fully disclosing its lobbying activities.”

May 8 – AbbVie

AbbVie is “collaborating with select health authorities and institutions globally on clinical research” and is donating $25 million to help support underserved communities and healthcare systems. The shareholder proposal filed by Zevin Asset Management notes that AbbVie is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, which has spent over $1.5 billion on lobbying since 1998, and sits on the board of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which spends millions lobbying against drug pricing measures. The exempt shareholder solicitation states that “AbbVie’s disclosure lags many of its peer group members which disclose the portion of trade association payments that are used for lobbying.”

Tell Corporate America to end the hypocrisy 

If you own shares directly in these companies, you should vote in favor of these proposals, which asks the company to prepare an annual report on its lobbying activity so that shareholders- the true owners of the company- can assess the associated risk.

If you don’t own stock directly in these companies –or any other company where these shareholder resolutions are filed this year — but are worried about undisclosed political spending by corporations that is being used to influence our democracy, chances are you can have an impact through your 401(k) instead.

If you invest your retirement through BlackRock, State Street, Dimensional, Fidelity or Vanguard, you can vote with your dollars and tell the funds to support disclosure.

 

Note: This piece was first posted on the Corporate Reform Coalition website.

old fashioned monopoly cartoon

By Opposing H.R. 1, the “For the People Act,” the Chamber Says Democracy Should Belong to Corporations, Not Voters

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On Friday, the most sweeping anticorruption legislation since the Watergate era passed through the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 234-193. This democracy reform bill, otherwise known as H.R. 1 or the “For the People Act,” has multiple aims: to ensure that our voting and electoral systems are protected and satisfy the “one person, one vote” principle; to crack down on rampant corruption and kleptocracy in Washington; and to reduce the role of corporate money in politics. Among other reforms, the bill calls for an end to gerrymandering, more transparent and open government requiring corporate disclosure of political spending, and partial public financing of elections to lessen the power of the ultra-wealthy donor class in determining who wins elections in U.S. politics.

To the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, this bill essentially means a disruption in the established way of doing business in Washington—the status quo in which the Chamber and its corporate cronies have outsize influence over who gets elected and what legislation is passed. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the Chamber sent out what it called a “Key Vote Alert!” to all House members shortly before the vote was scheduled to take place, urging them to vote no on this bill that is vital to repairing our democracy. As the largest lobbying entity in the United States and a prodigious campaign spender, it is no surprise to see the Chamber sticking its head out on such an ambitious bill that would drastically reduce the influence of corporate money in politics.

While the bill passed through the House despite the Chamber’s protestations, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has stated he does not intend to bring the bill to a vote on the Senate floor, on the flimsy grounds that “I get to decide what we vote on.” Nevertheless, H.R. 1 is expected to be introduced to the Senate later this month, and sufficient public pressure to pass this wildly popular bill could force McConnell into conceding that withholding these sorely needed reforms from even getting a vote is an untenable position. You can bet your bottom dollar—and every other dollar you have—that the Chamber will be hard at work to keep McConnell from letting the American people’s representatives in the Senate have a say in whether or not it passes—so as to protect the millions of dollars it invests to try to sway elections.

In the text of the alert the Chamber sent to House members before the vote, the Chamber claims that American democracy “benefits from the robust participation of its citizens — whether they choose to engage individually at the ballot box or collectively through a party, association, or corporation.” By referring to corporations in the context of “citizens,” the Chamber is invoking the notion of supposed “corporate personhood.” Notably, the Chamber also recoils at the idea that the bill would “have the practical effect of prohibiting associations, corporations, from engaging in the political process.” This is an uncharacteristic instance of the Chamber, usually careful to keep up the charade that it exists primarily to benefit small businesses, “saying the quiet part loud.” The Chamber exists to promote the interests of corporations and the ultra-wealthy, but rarely does it admit to such so blatantly.

The reality is that voters do not believe that corporations are people and believe that corporations have “too much power” over politicians. By claiming that corporations have some unassailable right to a voice in our politics—which, due to the massive amounts of money corporations and their representative associations like the Chamber pour into lobbying and political advertising, inevitably drowns out the political voices of average Americans—the Chamber is making an argument that the public fundamentally disagrees with in an effort to convince the very same lawmakers whose coffers it lines that they benefit from the present system.

Elsewhere in the alert, the Chamber argues that H.R. 1 would place unreasonable burden on the kinds of “issue ads” (effectively, campaign ads in disguise) corporations are allowed to air. Likewise, it claims that the bill’s requirement that organizations must disclose communications with candidates or elected officials is “onerous.” This is clearly a bad-faith argument; the Chamber knows full well which of its “issue ads” should rightfully be considered campaign ads, and the disclosure requirement is a very simple way of shining sunlight on who is really funding the ads and potential conflicts of interest held by our elected officials. But as per usual, the Chamber paints itself as the put-upon victim of some overly harsh punishment rather than the truth—that it is a massive spender in American politics and it simply wants to maintain the status quo where it can safely influence elections and legislation out of public sight.

Luckily, the fate of H.R. 1 is not pre-ordained. No matter how much Sen. McConnell and the U.S. Chamber may want to deny the people the right to the kinds of reforms to our broken political system that they desperately want and need, they do not hold all the cards. By urging your senator to co-sponsor the bill when it is introduced in the Senate later this month, and to publicly demand that McConnell bring the bill to the floor for a vote, we can show that our democracy really is “for the people”—and no, “the people” does not include corporations.

U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on www.chamberofcommercewatch.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Chamber CEO Donohue at podium

New Year, New Congress—Same Old U.S. Chamber

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Never at a loss for spinning its corporate-friendly agenda as somehow benefiting working Americans, yesterday’s “2019 State of American Business Address” by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s CEO, Thomas J. Donohue, was a textbook example of using syrupy public relations-friendly language to mask the Chamber’s true intent. The speech laid out the Chamber’s policy priorities for 2019 and for the newly sworn-in 116th Congress in characteristically rosy terms.

A closer look at what was officially called the “#AmericanDreams” speech, though, paints a starkly different picture from how it sounded on its surface. The vision Donohue laid out—of maintaining private, for-profit healthcare; of an unregulated pharmaceutical industry free to price gouge consumers; of unrestrained use of fossil fuels that would pollute our environment and further contribute to climate change; of policies preventing consumers and workers from suing corporations that have harmed or discriminated against them; and of a total lack of transparency in corporate political spending—would be more like an American Nightmare for the average citizen.

When Donohue claims that the state of the economy is extremely strong, what he really means is that it’s great if you’re a CEO or wealthy stockholder raking in record corporate profits and increased share values due to record stock buybacks. However, the average American has been facing years of wage stagnation, job insecurity, underemployment, and a dangerous lack of worker protections. And, when he says “prudent regulation,” he means fewer safeguards for workers, consumers, and the public at large.

The Chamber’s well-funded and heavily-staffed lobby machine can be very savvy. So, when it says it will “take bipartisanship into account” we know that means that with a Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives in the 116th Congress, the Chamber cannot simply rely on congressional Republicans to pass its corporate agenda alone, as it’s done for years. And though the Chamber has added bipartisanship as a criterion in its 2019 legislative scorecard (at 10% of total score, making it roughly the weighted equivalent of the “participation” grade in an average college class), these feints toward moderation are merely PR. Its policy advocacy is no less extreme in its tilt toward corporations and the extremely wealthy folks who make up its donor base and against the average consumer, worker or family.

To wit: Donohue promises to “use all of our resources to combat” a single-payer healthcare system. Although such a system would overwhelmingly benefit the average American and is tremendously popular with the public, it would endanger the Chamber’s corporate buddies in the health industry, so the Chamber is now threatening to oppose it with all of its considerable lobbying might. Elsewhere in the speech, Donohue claims that protests of natural gas pipelines and the push to keep fossil fuels in the ground are causing undue strain on American traditional energy producers. In reality, this decline is because those entities are themselves fossils, tied to a business model that is no longer profitable (let alone prudent given the clear evidence of climate change). This willfully misleading stance proves the Chamber is just as beholden to the fossil fuel industry as ever.

Later in the speech, Donohue claims that Americans’ right to file civil and class action suits “undermines justice” when really it protects vulnerable populations from powerful wealthy interests. And, when the Chamber says that the U.S. should restrict shareholder rights to “reform” publicly-owned corporations’ policies on matters such as disclosure of political spending, it really means it wants average investors to have less of a say and intends to do all it can to ensure secret money continues to be dumped into political campaigns.

In all of these cases, the Chamber’s policy goal amounts to letting corporations do whatever they want with zero accountability and zero protection for the public interest. The Chamber may be attempting to put on a fresh new face to deal with a new Congress, but rest assured, its agenda is as pro-corporate and anti-Main Street as ever. Perhaps instead of promising to stand for “every child, every family, every worker, and every entrepreneur,” a more honest promise would be that the Chamber stands for “every corporation, every billionaire, every Big Bank, and every CEO.”

U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on www.chamberofcommercewatch.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

illustration of many people standing in solidarity

Fed Up With the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Anti-Democracy Activities? So is an Ambitious New Coalition

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If you have followed Chamber Watch for long, you are intimately familiar with the reactionary, anti-democratic agenda of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As the nation’s largest lobbying group, the Chamber is the poster-child for the toxic influence of moneyed interests in our system. As the largest spender of secret money on political advertisements, the Chamber ensures that the public remains unaware of who is funding it, allowing its billionaire donors to remain in the shadows while pouring unfathomable sums into our broken campaign finance system. And by bullying opponents into submission with overwhelming capacity for corporate litigation, it plays a key role in hindering government efforts to impose and enforce commonsense safeguards and reforms protecting consumers, workers and the environment.

The Chamber is a key bad actor, but it is not the only anti-democratic force in our system today. Our democracy is in crisis because of the influence of the corporate behemoths and billionaire donors on officials in power. The nexus between moneyed interests and office-holders has resulted in profoundly broken institutions that fail to protect average Americans the way they are meant to.

From voter suppression to open defiance of the rule of lawto unchecked ethical violations, American democracy is under a constant onslaught of attacks. The power of special interests in politics have  been wreaking havoc on our democracy for decades, resulting in a nation where average Americans have very little say over the direction the country is headed in and which policies are being enacted.

But thankfully, a new coalition of over 100 organizations inside and outside Washington, representing a diverse range of issue areas and constituencies, has emerged to confront the monstrosity of corporate moneyed influence. The member organizations individually advocate for a number of different issues, but all of them commonly recognize that the only way to move forward on their particular issues is to start with foundational, systemic reforms. This coalition, the Declaration for American Democracy, made its formal debut via a press conference on October 30. Now, following the midterm elections, the Declaration for American Democracy is committed to advocating for a large number of top-to-bottom reforms to address America’s crisis of democracy, starting with demands made of the 116th Congress.

The basic demands of the Declaration for American Democracy are:

  • Our democracy must ensure the freedom to vote and have that vote counted.
  • Our democracy must be honest.
  • Our democracy must have meaningful participation.
  • Our democracy must provide transparency into our government and our elections.
  • Our democracy must be responsive.

The U.S. Chamber is a massive wrecking ball, bringing destruction to our democracy through its multipronged efforts of lobbying, secret money campaign finance spending. It and other groups representing massive corporate and billionaire funds have caused tremendous damage to our democracy.

But it is not too late to repair our democracy, and bolster its foundations to prevent this kind of crisis from ever arising again. By following the Declaration for American Democracy and supporting its efforts, you can take action to demand much-needed structural reform to our system. This is our democracy—not the U.S. Chamber’s, nor wealthy donors’. It’s time we reclaim it.

U.S. Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on www.chamberofcommercewatch.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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On Tax Day, the U.S. Chamber Pretends the Trump Tax Cut is Not Just for the Very Wealthy

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This morning, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce held its “Tax Cuts at Work” event to celebrate the tax legislation that passed in December, which gave a massive windfall to the wealthy and to profitable corporations, as well as rewarding tax dodgers that had stockpiled money overseas. The event description states that attendees gathered to “discuss the benefits of the recently enacted tax reform legislation,” which is code for a lot of self-congratulatory back-patting since the Chamber lobbied heavily for its passage. In fact, a recent Public Citizen report found that the Chamber hired 115 lobbyists on tax issues in 2017—the most hired by any one organization.

This Chamber event is part of a coordinated PR blitz that President Trump, the GOP leadership, and their cronies have been engaged in since the bill’s passage that would have the American public believe tax cuts for corporations actually spur wage growth and job creation. Not only has trickle-down theory been disproven in the past, but the current data show that almost all of the real effects of the tax cut involve making the extremely wealthy even wealthier. That’s why people call it the Trump Tax Scam.

In a recent blog post, the Chamber trumpeted that because of the new tax law, “job creators are sending less of their hard-earned money to Washington,” which of course means there will be less revenue for healthcare, education, and other important government investments like infrastructure.  However, the post also gave the false impression that it is primarily small businesses that are seeing the tax cuts’ benefits rather than giant corporations. The reality is that the tax cut’s benefits for small business owners are complicated and confusing, and has different treatment for different types of small businesses, meaning some could possibly end up paying more.

The newly-launched resource, Trump Tax Cut Truths, makes clear where the money from the tax cuts is actually going. The answer? To giant corporations and the extremely wealthy, mostly. Take a look at some key findings:


Graphic: Americans for Tax Fairness

The Chamber’s public relations materials may be able to cherry-pick anecdotes of a couple of small business owners whose stories suit its narrative of reinvestment, but it’s plain to see that the overwhelming bulk of the tax cut’s benefits are going to shareholders, not workers. The stock buybacks and higher corporate profits mean very little to the average employee. A recent National Bureau of Economic Research report found that the majority of U.S. households own no stock, the richest 1% own 40% of stock, and the richest 10% own 84% of stock.

Previously, we wrote about the Chamber’s million dollar ad campaign and its “Tax Reform Now” website, back when the Chamber was lobbying the get the tax cut package passed. Both of those promotion efforts were deeply misleading in exactly the same way as its current messaging around the tax scam: pretending it was about helping working people and small businesses, rather than the corporations and Big Business executives it was created to benefit.

This law is having exactly the effect it was designed to have: making Donald Trump and his family, Republicans in Congress, and their billionaire donors richer.  A recent report from the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy found that the richest fifth of Americans will receive 71% of the benefits of the tax law in 2018, with the largest benefit going to the richest one percent. The U.S. Chamber can try all it wants to hide that fact, but the numbers don’t lie.

Instead of letting ourselves fall for the Chamber’s misleading portrayal of what the tax changes have actually done, we should end tax breaks for wealthy CEOs and reject efforts by the GOP to pay for their charade by making deep cuts into Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and education. Take action today to demand that Congress repeal the #TrumpTaxScam.

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The Chamber’s Small Business Sham

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This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will host its annual Small Business Summitin Washington, DC. The stated purpose of the three day event is to provide small businesses with tools and strategies “to successfully compete in today’s rapidly changing business environment.” While this sounds well and good, the Chamber unsurprisingly fails (yet again) to mention that its role as “the voice of small business” is really just a sham.

The Summit agenda consists of a multitude of panels, including “How to Get Your Company Thinking Like a Startup,” “Your State’s Lawsuit Climate and How It Affects Small Businesses,” and “How and Why Your Business Grows (or Doesn’t).” Sure, these panels  sound innocent enough to someone who isn’t well-versed on the Chamber, but in reality—they hide the many  times the Chamber has lobbied to stack the deck against small businesses. We’ve taken the liberty of renaming and reframing the Summit panels so that they are more honest about the Chamber’s relationship with small business:

Litigating Against Small Business for Beginners: Chamber vs. Main Street

Looking to keep consumers out of court? Hoping to sue a mom-and-pop shop? This panel is for you!

While the Chamber may claim to be the voice of small businesses in Washington, when it comes to litigation, it can be consistently relied upon to favor the huge corporations that fund it. Whether it’s arguing for reduced access to the courts, opposing stricter supervision of Wall Street banks designed to reduce the risk of future financial crises, fighting for Big Oil against emissions controls, or supporting Big Pharma’s schemes to keep drug prices sky high, the Chamber always comes down on the side of its deep-pocketed Big Business patrons, ignoring the impact on small businesses. In fact, in a report earlier this year, Chamber Watch found that the Chamber files a brief roughly every other day of the work week, and in almost 60 percent of cases, the Chamber supported at least one Fortune 500 company. In comparison, it supported a domestic small business only 7 percent of the time. In fact, it supported a foreign multinational twice as often as it did a domestic small business. Companies the Chamber litigated on behalf of included State Farm, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Allstate, Berkshire Hathaway, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, AIG, and JP Morgan Chase, ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, BP, PPL, and Shell, to name a few.

Regulations help Small Business? Deny Deny Deny 101

Have you heard the term “red tape” but aren’t sure how to work it into every day conversation? Stop by this lecture to hear from Chamber experts on their experience in denying that regulations actually help rather than hurt small businesses. This panel will equip you with all the tools you need to ignore the statistics that show small businesses support regulation and steer the conversation elsewhere. Did someone say red tape?

The Chamber has a long history of opposing regulations under the guise of being a voice for small business. From the overtime rule, to the Clean Water Rule  to the Clean Power Plan, to the open internet rules (have we made our point?) it has yet to meet a regulation it didn’t want rolled back.  According to a poll by Small Business Majority, 86 percent of small business owners agree some regulation of business is necessary for a modern economy, and 93 percent of them agree their business can live with some regulation if it is fair, manageable and reasonable. What’s more, 78 percent of small employers agree regulations are important in protecting small businesses from unfair competition and to level the playing field with big business. Another 79 percent of small business owners support having clean air and water in their community in order to keep their family, employees and customers healthy, and 61 percent support standards that move the country towards energy efficiency and clean energy.

Net Non-Neutrality: Even We Know We’re Wrong on This One

Are you an AT&T or Comcast employee who accidentally wandered into this Summit? You’re in the right place now!

The Chamber has conceded that the vast majority of Americans, support net neutrality. In fact, even smaller internet service providers (ISPs,) part of the small business community that the Chamber loves to claim to represent, support net neutrality regulations because they prevent larger competitors from gaining an unfair advantage. Proponents of net neutrality argue that by ensuring equal treatment of all internet content, companies compete on a level playing field and consumers are able to access whatever content they want without issue. Meanwhile, the  Chamber and other opponents argue that net neutrality regulations limit incentives for ISPs to improve their networks. These critics argue that without charging companies to guarantee access to content, ISPs won’t have the money necessary to make these investments. In reality, investment in internet infrastructure has not decreased as a result of net neutrality regulations. That leaves only one constituency in favor of deregulation: giant telecom companies.

With its anti-small business record so clear, why does the Chamber still keep up its yearly sham? Apparently the “Big Business Summit” just doesn’t have the same ring…

Chamber Watch is a project of Public Citizen. If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on www.chamberofcommercewatch.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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On Net Neutrality, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce again sides with Big Business over Consumers

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On July 12, activist groups and tech companies came together to protest a potential rollback of net neutrality regulations under the Trump administration. These rules are designed to ensure equal access to all internet content. Billed as a “Day of Action”, the event ultimately generated around two million comments to the FCC opposing this deregulation.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was unimpressed.

Two million comments apparently mean little compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars the Chamber receives in corporate donations. As always, when faced with a choice between supporting consumer or corporate interests, the Chamber puts profits before people. And under a president who has made a point of undoing regulationscreated by his predecessor, the Chamber has had plenty of opportunities to demonstrate its convictions.

The Trump administration’s entire deregulatory crusade has disastrous implications for the American public, and the proposed net neutrality rollbacks are no exception. If net neutrality regulations are eliminated, larger ISPs will be able to privilege certain web content over others. This means that ISPs like AT&T and Comcast could potentially charge companies to guarantee easy access to web content, and this would damage users’ ability to access content from less well-funded sites.

Our current system of net neutrality regulations were created in 2015 under President Obama. The rules provoked a spate of criticism from the Chamber. In fact, the Chamber claimed that such protections are “a bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist,” even though companies such as Netflix had already detailed discriminatory treatment by ISPs.

Net neutrality proponents argue that by ensuring equal treatment of all internet content, companies compete on a level playing field and consumers are able to access whatever content they want without issue. Meanwhile, opponents such as the Chamber argue that net neutrality regulations limit incentives for ISPs to improve their networks. These critics argue that without charging companies to guarantee access to content, ISPs won’t have the money necessary to make these investments. In reality, investment in internet infrastructure has not decreased as a result of net neutrality regulations.

The Chamber concedes that the vast majority of Americans, including Trump voters, support net neutrality. In fact, even smaller ISPs, part of the small business community that the Chamber loves to claim to represent, support net neutrality regulationsbecause they prevent larger competitors from gaining an unfair advantage. That leaves only one constituency in favor of deregulation: giant corporations such as Comcast and AT&T. And on this issue (like many others), Big Business is the only constituency that the Chamber can credibly claim to represent.

In addition to its public advocacy work against net neutrality, the Chamber is clearly willing to put money behind its position. The Chamber’s lobbying disclosures from 2015 — when the rules were implemented — include five separate mentions of work on net neutrality. It’s mentioned on this year’s disclosures as well.  What’s more, the Chamber’s opposition to the net neutrality rule isn’t even shared by all large corporations. Facebook and Google belong to the Chamber and both participated in the “Day of Action”.

As a result of the overwhelming support from the public and even some members, the Chamber has had to revamp its message on the issue. The Chamber, like AT&T and other ISPs, argue that they are not actually opposed to net neutrality. Instead, they take issue with the current means of enforcing these rules.

How do they thread this needle? Well, under the rules created during the Obama administration, the FCC regulates internet providers as entities that offer “telecommunications services” rather than “information services”. This important regulatory distinction enables the FCC to impose stricter rules on ISPs, yet the Chamber claims that net neutrality could be achieved even if this framework were thrown out. By attacking the classification system, rather than net neutrality itself, the Chamber and large ISPs can claim that they are not directly opposing consumer interests.

But in reality, if this framework was dropped by the regulator, it would severely limit the FCC’s power to ensure access to a free and fair internet, and the Chamber and the big ISPs are well aware of the implications of such a move. Moreover, by arguing that Congress should instead pass a law establishing net neutrality, the Chamber is suggesting a solution that it surely knows is unlikely to be passed anytime soon, given the legislative gridlock that has characterized the last several congresses. In the meantime, the ISPs could go back to slowing the delivery of content from Netflix and any other companies they choose.

The push to deregulate the internet is led by Ajit Pai, recently named chairman of the FCC by President Trump. The Chamber has referred to Pai as “the internet’s friend.” What the Chamber really means is that Pai is the corporate lobbyist’s friend. Dismantling net neutrality regulations, whether directly or indirectly, serves only to benefit a very narrow set of corporate interests, while it hurts just about everyone else who uses the internet. Once again, the Chamber reveals its true concern is not the growth of the economy as a whole, but the financial benefits it can secure for its giant corporate members.

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House Budget: Gift to U.S. Chamber at the Expense of Average Americans

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If there was any doubt left in our mind (there wasn’t) that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is at the helm of the Trump administration’s sinking ship, the House Republicans’ budget proposal, released yesterday, certainly cleared that up. The “Building a Better America” budget proposal calls for significant cuts to public services while giving major tax handouts to the wealthy. While the budget seems to make cuts across all portfolios, there are three particular ones in which the Chamber is well versed in deregulating: financial reform, the safety net, medical malpractice reforms, and tax reform.

“Building a Better America” assumes adoption of the Financial CHOICE Act, a sweeping Wall Street deregulation bill that the Chamber has been lobbying in support of. The CHOICE Act (or as we like to call it, the “Wrong Choice Act”) would cripple the CFPB, something the Chamber has longed to destroy since it first came to be. What does the Chamber have against the CFPB? Easy. The CFBP works to protect consumers from unsavory and sometimes illegal behavior by the big financial institutions, many of which the Chamber represents. The CHOICE Act also repeals the Volcker Rule, a piece of legislation the Chamber loves to hate. The Volcker Rule ensures that banks refrain from engaging in speculative trading with investors’ money and brings them back to the regular business of banking, which reduces the chance of repeating the 2007 financial crisis. Much like with the rest of the CHOICE Act, the Chamber and the Big Banks are anti-Volcker Rule because it confines Wall Street’s ability to make short term profits that become big bonuses for executives.

Next up, the safety net. The Chamber has a long history of aggressively lobbying against Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The budget proposal would cut funding for Medicare by $487 billion over 10 years, while also cutting Medicaid and other health care programs by $1.5 trillion over the same amount of time. Unlike President Trump, the Chamber has never promised to spare Social Security from cuts. One specific cut to social security that the budget proposes is Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), something the Chamber has long tried to reform. The House budget contains $4 billion worth of cuts to social security, and while these cuts may be music to the Chamber’s ears, it is a devastating proposal for the average American.

Republicans would be remiss to pass up the opportunity to make outlandish claims regarding the practice of defensive medicine.  The proposal includes “reforms” outlined in the “Protecting Access to Care Act of 2017,” a bill the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform lobbied heavily on behalf of. The Chamber and its health care lobby allies assert preposterous estimates on the prevalence of defensive medicine and the costs incurred by it, despite those claims being debunked. The budget seeks to restrict patients’ rights in an effort to do the bidding of the health care lobby, something the Chamber is familiar with.

Lastly, tax reform. The tax reform proposals championed by the Chamber and largely adopted in the proposed House budget are made up of comprehensive tax giveaway to the wealthy and a payback scheme for the Chamber’s big business allies. The Chamber has said before of tax reform that it “will be at the table throughout the process—because anyone who isn’t at the table risks ending up on the menu.” And, based on this budget, they weren’t joking around. The House Republican budget calls for lowering the corporate tax rate and downplays the importance of the tax, given that it “actually raises relatively little revenue.” The Chamber has long championedreducing the tax rate on business income. And while conservative rhetoric may try to push the narrative that taxing corporations raises little revenue, the truth is that the Chamber/Trump/GOP tax reform proposal could cost as much as an estimated $7.8 trillion over ten years, disproportionately benefitting high-income households.

The House budget proposal is nothing more than a Chamber-dreamed windfall for corporations and Wall Street. Building a Better America or Building a Better Corporate America? Based on what we see in this budget blueprint, it is evident which the Chamber has been lobbying for.

If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber, you can always visit us on www.chamberofcommercewatch.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Policy_Riders

Conservatives work to shield Chamber from investors’ calls for transparency

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As President Trump pulls America out of the Paris climate agreement and Congress threatens to take health care away from 22 million people, it is becoming more and more clear that conservatives are making policy choices intended to scratch the backs of big companies and the wealthy few rather than protect regular Americans. Beyond the usual pandering to corporate interests, some conservatives are taking this a step further and using the critical federal budget process to push dangerous policy, sneaking in additional “poison pill riders” to this must pass funding legislation.

Recently, the House Appropriations subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government released its budget draft, which includes a harmful policy rider that stops the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from working on or finalizing a rule that would require corporations to tell shareholders (the owners of their companies) how they spend money to influence politics.

Corporate attempts to influence our politics are nothing new, but since the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United corporations are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence the outcomes of our elections. One way they do this is through trade associations like the National Restaurant Association, the Business Roundtable, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Many of the country’s largest companies do not disclose what they pay to their trade associations that both spend money directly on elections, and spend money lobbying on behalf of their corporate members.

The use of this secret channel is particularly troublesome because these trade associations oftentimes have a smoke and mirrors approach to policy. The Chamber, the nation’s largest business lobby, claims to work in the interests of small businesses when in reality it the Chamber uses its $275 million budget to push the biggest corporate agendas on issues almost every issue from the environment to worker safety to financial regulation to healthcare. Similarly, the Chamber claims to be bipartisan and yet it spent $29 million in election spending exclusively benefiting Republican candidates in 2016.

Many of the companies funding the Chamber take public stances in opposition to the Chamber’s, but the lack of information about the Chamber’s monetary gifts provides those companies with political cover. Disney, for instance, has committed to fighting climate change by pledging to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2020. It signed the American Business Act on Climate Pledge in support of the Paris climate agreement and took the Caring for Climate pledge as part of the United Nations Global Compact. Unfortunately, however, Disney also funds the Chamber, which actively lobbies against climate-friendly policies and funded the very study that President Trump cited in his rational for exiting the Paris Agreement. This secret Chamber funding led shareholders to file a resolution at Disney this spring asking the company to disclose its payments to the Chamber in addition to any other money it spends on lobbying.

Unfortunately, Disney isn’t the only company whose alleged corporate values are at odds with the aggressive work of the Chamber. Shareholders also filed the same lobbying disclosure resolution at UnitedHealth Group this year citing the company’s undisclosed funding of the Chamber. In just 15 months between 2009 and 2010, the Chamber spent more than $102 million dollars opposing the ACA. This money was funneled to the Chamber by the big health insurers. Among the companies to supplythe funding was UnitedHealth, who unlike its peers, Aetna, Anthem, CIGNA and Humana, does not disclose trade association memberships.

In Citizens United the Supreme Court made the assumption that disclosure would be the norm, allowing shareholders and customers to “hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.” In reality, many companies still spend money on elections and on lobbying in secret, and shareholders deserve to access to details about this spending. In an era where corporate donors dominate our elections and our President is overly amenable to the Chamber’s corporate agenda, shareholders and the American public need all the transparency they can get. If Republicans have their way, investors will be kept in the dark and trade associations will continue to push for Big Business policies at the expense of everyday Americans.

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Fourth of July or Christmas in July? Policy Riders are Big Gift to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

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Just before Congress escaped town for the Fourth of July recess, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee released its draft fiscal year 2018 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations bill. The FSGG appropriations bill provides annual funding for the U.S. Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and many other important agencies.

This year, however, the bill is packed chock full of ideological policy riders that have nothing to with funding the agencies the bill is supposed to provide for, and everything to do with pleasing the House majority’s corporate masters at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. By tucking these policy riders into must-pass legislation, the House leadership ensures that they have a better chance of becoming law than they would if they were forced to stand on their own (highly dubious) merits.

It may be the Fourth of July holiday week, but the release of the draft FSGG appropriations bill is likely to have been celebrated like Christmas in July in the marble hallways of the Chamber. The draft bill provides the Chamber with a veritable avalanche of presents, probably in response to the avalanche of money the Chamber has bestowed upon GOP candidates for Congress.

The biggest gift of all to the Chamber is the provision of the draft bill that would prevent the SEC from developing a rule that would require publicly traded companies to disclose their political spending to investors, including donations to politically active trade associations like the Chamber. The secrecy-obsessed Chamber has long lobbiedagainst such a rule. It has even reached out to member companies to urge them against voluntarily disclosing such information despite the fact that more than 1.2 million investors (retail and institutional) and members of the public have called for it.

If the policy rider prohibiting the development of a political spending disclosure rule qualifies as the proverbial new car in the garage on Christmas morning, then the rider eliminating the financial independence of the CFPB qualifies as the proverbial first class tickets to Paris for the Chamber and its friends on Wall Street. Fighting the existence of a strong, independent CFPB has been a lodestar for the Chamber. Why does the Chamber hate the CFPB so much? Probably because the CFBP is doing its job, working to protect consumers from unscrupulous and sometimes illegal behavior by the big financial institutions whose interests the Chamber represents. Indeed, the CFPB has obtained $11.8 billion in relief for over 29 million consumers. That’s $11.8 billion that wasn’t available for executive bonuses and stock buy-backs.

Unfortunately, bringing the CFPB under the heal of the very politicians who are most dependent upon corporate cash for their reelections isn’t the only policy rider in the draft FSGG appropriations bill that’s a giveaway to the Chamber’s Wall Street patrons. The draft bill contains a separate rider that would repeal the Volcker Rule. The Volcker Rule prevents banks from engaging in speculative trading with depositors’ money, thereby reducing the chances of another financial crisis. Of course, the Chamber and the Big Banks don’t like the Volcker Rule because it limits Wall Street’s ability to make short term profits that in turn produce big bonuses for executives.

As if all this weren’t enough, the draft FSGG appropriations bill contains another yuge gift for the Chamber and its financial services industry backers. The draft bill contains a rider which would halt a CFPB rule restricting the use of forced arbitration clauses buried in the fine print of consumer financial contracts. The Chamber has long campaigned against limits on this “rip-off” clause. Blocking this rule would essentially allow corporations to rip off consumers with impunity, as the Wells Fargo fake account scandal litigation has shown.

While it is undoubtedly depressing that our elected officials, who are supposed to represent the people, are instead finding new and ever more creative opportunities to shower gifts on their corporate benefactors, we still have time to make our voices heard. The House FSGG appropriations bill hasn’t yet passed through the full appropriations committee. So call your congressperson and tell him or her that you object to all of these harmful policy riders whose only purpose is to please the Chamber and the giant corporations intent upon buying our democracy.

Because if we don’t stand up and make our voices heard, then they very well may wind up singing some rather special Christmas carols at the Chamber this summer.

If you’d like to learn more about the Chamber and its reactionary agenda, you can always visit us on www.chamberofcommercewatch.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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