Thursday was another bad day for the US Chamber of Commerce, as New Mexico utility holding company PNM Resources resigned from the group over its stance against climate change legislation. PNM spokesperson Don Brown said the company sees climate change as “the most pressing environmental and economic issue of our time,” and thus won’t be renewing its membership in an organization that has raised doubts about whether global warming is man-made.
Their announcement comes less than a week after Pacific Gas & Electric, a major California utility, pulled out of the Chamber over concerns about the group’s climate change policies.
The group which represents 3 million US businesses, has been waging a campaign against Congressional action and has threated to sue the Environmental Protection Agency if they move forward on regulating carbon dioxide. They also recently filed suit against the EPA for granting California the right to set higher automobile emission standards.
PG&E and PNM are thus far the only two groups to formally resign over the Chamber’s climate stance. Here’s the statement from PNM:
Given that view, and a natural limit on both company time and resources, we have decided that we can be most productive by working with organizations that share our view on the need for thoughtful, reasonable climate change legislation and want to push that agenda forward in Congress. These organizations include the Edison Electric Institute, the association of shareholder-owned electric companies, and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a group of businesses and environmental organizations of which we are a founding member.
