nuclear-news

Many companies active in U.S. politics spread their political donations broadly on both sides of the aisle and consider multiple issues when deciding whom to support.

But inconsistency between a company’s environmental positions and its political giving may point up a need for better oversight, according to Jon Lukomnik, head of the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute.

“There really needs to be a process that looks at these issues … at C-suite and board levels on a periodic basis,” Lukomnik said.

The Reuters review covered donations made during the 2016 election cycle by the political action committees (PACs) of 30 of the biggest publicly traded U.S. companies that signed Obama’s “American Business Act on Climate Change Pledge” in 2015, a public promise to enact climate-friendly corporate policies and support strong climate change oversight like the global climate accord signed in Paris.

The review found that 25 of the 30 companies are funding the campaigns of lawmakers featured on a “climate deniers” list that was put together by Organizing For Action, a non-profit created by former Obama campaign aides to advocate his agenda.

The list includes more than 130 members of Congress, nearly all Republicans, and is a who’s who of the biggest opponents of Obama’s plan to combat climate change. Some of those on the list dispute the label “denier” and describe themselves as climate change “skeptics”.

The list includes Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, an energy advisor to presidential candidate Donald Trump who once argued the Earth was cooling not warming, and Republican U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who last year held up a snowball on the Senate floor as evidence global warming does not exist.

The review found PepsiCo and DuPont’s political action committees gave about half or more of the money from their top donations in support of senators and congressmen on the list. That amounted to $56,500 from the Pepsi PAC’s 29 donations of $2,500 and above, and $40,000 from the DuPont PAC’s 19 donations of $2,000 and above.

Other signatories to the American Business Act on Climate Change Pledge that gave more than a third of their top political contributions to lawmakers on the list include Google, AT&T, GE, Verizon, and Mondelez, according to the review.

Those levels of donations given to climate skeptics are relatively high given that the list covers about a quarter of U.S. Congress members……… http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-climate-donations-idUSKCN11C0ED