Pirate's Cove

This is very interesting. So many of these companies are pushing all sorts of “green” measures, both for their own companies and publicly by government. They yammer about green servers and using electric vehicles for operations and reducing their carbon footprints. Yet

Apple, Amazon and others back groups trying to kill US climate legislation

Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Disney are among the major companies backing corporate lobby groups and organizations that are battling a US climate bill, according to a report. That’s despite those companies all making pledges to reduce their impact on the environment.

The United States Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the Rate Coalition are three of the lobbyist and business groups that oppose the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget bill, which includes measures to fight climate change. The Guardian reports that watchdog Accountable.US analyzed the groups to learn which companies have connections to them.

The Chamber of Commerce, the biggest lobbying group in the US, has said it would “do everything we can to prevent this tax-raising, job-killing reconciliation bill from becoming law.” The group’s board includes executives from the likes of United Airlines and Microsoft.

The board of the Business Roundtable includes Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google and Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. The group has said it’s “deeply concerned” about the bill and the increased taxes it would lead to for the rich. Google has also made political contributions in the past to individuals and organizations that have denied climate change.

Now, see, the thing is, if these companies want to do “green” things in their own business operations, that’s their choice. And it should be their choice, not by Force of Government. But, again, publicly they have been very supportive of government Doing Something

The support of lobbying groups that are attempting to kill the bill conflicts with the tech companies’ attempts to tackle the climate crisis. Apple, Google and Microsoft have all backed the Paris Agreement, for one thing. Apple and Microsoft promised to become carbon neutral and carbon negative respectively by 2030.

By backing Paris they are showing their support for Government dominance and requirements, rather than personal/business responsibility.

On Friday, Amazon expressed support for the infrastructure bill and the climate aspects of the Build Back Better reconciliation bill. A spokesperson provided the following statement to Engadget:

Amazon believes both private and public sector leadership is required to tackle the global issue of climate change. That’s why we actively advocate for policies that promote clean energy, increase access to renewable electricity, and decarbonize the transportation system. In addition to advocating for these issues on a local, state, and international level, we have a worldwide sustainability team that innovates sustainable solutions for both our business and customers, as well as co-founded The Climate Pledge – a commitment to be net-zero carbon 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement.

There’s a bit more to the statement, but, you get the idea: support in public, opposition in private. Because it looks good in public, but, they know that all these climate scam regulations will cause a lot of economic issues, both for their companies and for consumers.