In early 2014, the Chamber filed an amicus brief in support of BP’s effort to re-open a class action settlement it had agreed to in 2012 for the compensation of thousands of American small businesses damaged by the company’s Deepwater Horizon spill. While BP is a foreign company and had already agreed to the settlement, it is also a bigger company, with deeper pockets, than the small businesses damaged by its environmental recklessness, and so the Chamber came to its defense, ignoring the prejudice this would cause to thousands of American small businesses.
In 2015, the Chamber’s efforts to get rid of the decades-long crude-oil export ban ultimately succeeded, increasing profits for Big Oil and pushing the development of renewables further down the national agenda.
In 2017, the Chamber lobbied for a CRA resolution to repeal the Cardin-Lugar Anti-Corruption Rule. The CRA resolution ultimately passed and was signed by President Trump. The effect of this repeal was to void a requirement that Big Oil companies and other corporations in the extractives sector report the payments they make to foreign governments. Abolishing such a transparency provision will deny citizens in dozens of resource rich but corrupt countries the opportunity to hold their governments accountable for the use of public monies derived from resource production.
In a nod to the Chamber’s priority for greater oil and gas production, the Trump administration has also signaled that it will push for greater access to federal lands for fossil fuel development. The Chamber has of course welcomed this proposal.