Let’s just say, we’ve been to this rodeo before.
The highly-partisan industry lobby group, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has been acting against the interests of its small business and local Chamber of Commerce members for years. Selling out the small businesses it should be representing? Check. Public attacks on and alienation from the very communities it should be promoting? Check.
If you are a business or a local Chamber in the Gulf region, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has (remarkably) been at war with you for years. Let’s begin with the fact that for several years following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the U.S. Chamber inexplicably targeted for criticism every state in the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast region, suggesting that these states are bad for businesses.
But there is more. Yesterday, several local Gulf area chambers filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court, which “blasted the national chamber for ignoring thousands of its members to support one large one,” i.e. BP.
The local chambers are: the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce, the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Pensacola Chamber of Commerce, the Ascension Chamber of Commerce, the Charlotte County Chamber of Commerce, the St. Bernard Parish Chamber of Commerce, the River Region Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber of Commerce of Cape Coral. They represent “over 7,000 businesses, large and small, throughout the affected region of the Gulf of Mexico” and all are affiliates of U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They are angry and with good reason.
One day after BP was found to be grossly negligent in causing the 2010 Gulf Coast disaster, the U.S. Chamber filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting BP's decision to stop spending money to help businesses it harmed and agreed to compensate. The courts have already told BP they are wrong. See, the "harshly worded opinion," upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, attacking BP for this behavior and saying it could not slime out of a settlement that BP itself negotiated and agreed to. BP wants the Supreme Court to hear their case and so does the U.S. Chamber. For the Chamber, this is in direct conflict with the interests of its own members, whose pending claims would be tossed out if the Chamber got its way.
In the U.S. Supreme Court brief filed yesterday, these local chambers write that they and their business members,
[w]ere negatively impacted to one extent or another by the events of April 20, 2010 and the subsequent economic and environmental disaster caused by [BP]’s gross negligence. These Affiliates and their members wish to inform the Court of their disagreement with, and objection to, the amicus brief filed by The [U.S.] Chamber in support of [BP], as The [U.S.] Chamber does not speak for these Affiliates and their members in this instance.…
The [U.S.] Chamber purports to speak for “more than three million U.S. businesses and organizations of every size, in every industry, and from every region of the country” (Chamber Br. at 2), yet it fails to disclose that hundreds, and potentially thousands, of Affiliates of The [U.S.] Chamber and business members of those Affiliates have filed claims for business economic losses in reliance on the Settlement Agreement – a Contract – and the very compensation system [BP] designed, lobbied for District Court approval of, attested to the adequacy and fairness of under oath, and initially defended before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.…
Affiliates feel compelled to inform the Court of the misstatements made by The [U.S.] Chamber in its amicus brief.…
Unfortunately, with this issue of utmost importance to the many small business members that were deleteriously affected by the [BP]’s gross negligence, the opinions of these members were not solicited, and when expressed were not respected. The [U.S.] Chamber obviously did not and does not serve as the “voice” of these members, as it misstates in its amicus brief.…
The Chamber serves the express interests of a foreign corporation at the expense of a very large number of its Affiliates and individual business members.
Hot damn, now we're getting somewhere!
Comments