Aspen, Colorado Leaves U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Over Climate Change Dispute

From The American Independent's Troy Hooper:

Aspen’s chamber of commerce isn’t the first to sever ties with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over political differences. The chamber in Homer, Alaska, made national headlines when it canceled its membership.

But Auden Schendler, the Aspen Skiing Co.’s vice president of sustainability, believes the famous Rocky Mountain hamlet’s stature may bring more scrutiny to the U.S. Chamber’s right-wing agenda.

“Homer was a unique story, but Aspen is an even more high-profile town with often outsized influence,” Schendler said Thursday. “It’s the iconic ski town that often sets an example for others.”

At a retreat this week, the Aspen Chamber Resort Association’s board voted 11 to 1 to withdraw its membership from the national organization. Tension between Aspen’s chamber and the national one existed for years. The 680-member local chamber penned a letter to the national group in 2010 delineating its differences. But this year — which saw the driest winter in Aspen since the 1976-1977 season — politics are in overdrive thanks to the coming November general election. Several weeks ago, Aspen’s chamber began feeling pressure from Schendler and his Aspen Skiing Co. bosses, the mayor, a pair of county commissioners and residents who had had enough of the local chamber’s affiliation with the right-wing U.S. Chamber and its obstruction of solutions to climate change.

Aspen’s leaders initially said they would continue paying the $800 in annual dues because they considered it a good value in return for the services the national chamber provides. But with the chairlifts idle and Aspen’s streets clear of tourists after a warm winter brought the ski season to an early close, business leaders had more time to ponder the meaning of their memberships.

“After a substantive and productive debate, the board ultimately decided that because the ACRA’s mission is to be the unifying voice for and reflect the core values of our local business community and reflect their core values, it is important its own affiliations are in line with the city, the county, and the majority of business owners’ views,” according to minutes from the Aspen Chamber Resort Association retreat. “An association with the U.S. Chamber, which so vigorously opposes important energy reform, is out of that alignment.”

The local chamber’s recap continued: “Aspen’s economy is inextricably tied to the future of the global climate and all area entities have deeply embraced the idea of reducing our carbon footprint. With our resignation from the U.S. Chamber, the ACRA shows its solidarity with this position.”

Blair Latoff, senior director of communications for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., said the national group worked closely with the Aspen Chamber Resort Association on a variety of pro-business and pro-jobs issues, including immigration, transportation, and tourism for years.

A survey released just last month showed that 77 percent of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association’s membership supported the U.S. Chamber and voted to remain affiliated with it, Latoff noted.

“It’s unfortunate that rather than working to establish a path forward, select members of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association Board chose to politicize their departure to benefit their own agenda,” he said. “The U.S. Chamber works with thousands of state and local chambers across the country and will continue to partner on the issues that impact job creators and our country’s economic recovery.”

Debbie Braun, president of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association, said the local group had been with the national one since 2005 and that its membership will expire at the end of this month.

“I have heard from some of my U.S. Chamber contacts and they of course are sad to see us go,” Braun wrote in an email. “It is to be determined if other chambers will follow our lead.”

Private businesses such as Nike and Apple dropped their memberships a few years ago to protest the U.S. Chamber’s efforts to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from tracking the emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases. For similar reasons, in 2009, San Francisco’s chamber of commerce — the 10th largest in the country — withdrew its membership from the U.S. Chamber’s federation partnership program but retained its membership with the U.S. Chamber. Since then, nearly 60 chambers have publicly denounced the U.S. Chamber’s politics or ended their membership.

Now that Aspen is all-in in its protest, it remains to be seen if other community chambers will do the same. At least one of the leading voices in the debate believes Aspen will make a difference.

“It’s a press magnet,” Schendler said. “It’s home to wealthy and influential residents and guests. So when Aspen makes a move like this, others, and the U.S. Chamber in particular, know the message is not lost in the ether, but instead gets out to captains of industry, celebrities,and other high-leverage people. Aspen isn’t the center of the universe, and I don’t mean to overemphasize its importance.

“But the place has traction and influence,” he said. “It just does.”

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Comments

[alohaz]

05:54 PM on 04/30/2012

Way to go Aspen, Homer.

[Davidc Smith]

11:26 AM on 04/30/2012

I expect to see more of this. The Chamber of Commerce has become a shill for foriegn corporate interests and pushes an agenda that is frequently detrimental to the small and medium sized buisness owners which forms the backbone of their organization. Until they re connect with the needs of its membership, it will decline and become increasingly irrelevent except as a pass thru for multinationals political activities--which is about all they do now.

[babyspittle]

09:10 PM on 04/29/2012

good

[Sean Jennings]

07:38 PM on 04/29/2012

Way to stand up and be heard Aspen. You the town. I mean attempting to block the EPA from keeping track of science. That sounds blatantly obtuse and close minded to me.

[jenniferkizzy]

07:15 PM on 04/29/2012

aspens mad as hell and there not gonna take it anymore bye

[pisedoff]

06:49 PM on 04/29/2012

Right on people of Aspen. You have finally rid yourselves of a TGOP PAC known as the US Chamber of Commerce. Their lies and oppression of environmental sustainability is a crime of great consequence to you and your survival.

[Roosevelt Democrat]

12:39 PM on 04/29/2012

Just an example of how dysfunctional our whole economic & environmental policies are!

You can't build a large solar energy projects because of all the lawsuits. You can't build an off-shore wind project without lawsuits. You can't build a pipeline from Canada without lawsuits. You can't mine rare earths for green energy projects here in America without lawsuits. You can't build a port to export coal without a lawsuit. You can't build a plant to convert trash into energy without a lawsuit. The list goes on ...........

Something to think about. Germany with a population less than 1/3 of the U.S. has almost as many people working in manufacturing as are employed here in the U.S. Germany in this difficult economic time has an unemployment rate about 5.5%!

Something else to think about. Germany only has about 1,400 people working in their equivalent of our EPA compared to 18,000 for our EPA with 6,000 of them working in Washington!

The Chamber maybe wrong in their approach but unless you are an attorney you have to agree there is something wrong in our approach when you compare it with Germany!

[Oginikwe]

03:30 PM on 04/29/2012

Also in Germany, the unions work hand in hand with management and post-secondary education is paid for by the government.

[pisedoff]

06:55 PM on 04/29/2012

and the fines for environmental law violations can put companies out of business and send those responsible to jail.. They don't dare cause pollution violations. Here some congressman or senator will interject and threaten funding to the EPA if they don't look the other way. Same goes for OSHA violations. In Germany, the politicians don't play games with the environment or worker safety. So if you prefer Germany, go live there.

[Sean Jennings]

07:45 PM on 04/29/2012

Hey pisedoff, do we really need to have the "then go live there" every time someone even mentions how another country does things. jeez. Take it easy and go build your bunker.

[Roosevelt Democrat]

09:06 PM on 04/29/2012

so your answer to problems is not to try to fix the problem but instead move?

I help run a manufacturing plant in the U.S. We have a mutual aid kind of agreement with similar manufactures in Germany and Great Britain since we very rarely compete with each other directly it works very well in developing new ideas.

We were comparing environmental regulations the first one we picked was air quality. My European counterparts had all their laws & regulations that directly affected their in a 3 inch loose leaf binder.

Mine was a stack of paper work about 4 feet high!

You think those 6,000 employees of the EPA in Washington were doing nothing?

My German counterpart pointed out we had to cut down a lot of forest to keep up with our regulations! My English counterpart just stared at the regulations on the Hand truck!

[Ian OFull]

11:20 AM on 04/29/2012

Hopefully it will bring to question that many local chambers will ask themselves the question if they want to pay to be aligned with an agenda that are not in the national interest, but the multinational interest of the larger organization?

[alvdh1]

10:10 AM on 04/29/2012

Some of the lube was just removed from the right wing talking machine, which needs more cities and businesses to increase their squeaky wheel voices against this outrageously biased political organization.

[builder101]

08:12 AM on 04/29/2012

I love Aspen, America we do not need the Wing Nut chamber- their agenda has drifted too far right. If we can get a few more Colorado, Calf.,and maybe NY,NY, well we can stifle their harmful influence.

[lew]

11:11 PM on 04/28/2012

Good for them. The US Chamber of Commerce has gone from an aid and booster to small business to a right wing echo chamber out to further corporate interests, mostly at the expense of the small businesses it was designed to help. A perfect example is in health care. Small businesses that want to retain good employees need a single payer system that will allow them to afford health care costs and have some guarantee of cost containment. But the Chamber is in the pocket of big Pharma, big insurance and big healthcare and have fought any law that would help small business or the average citizen. It's all about politics and payoffs and the favors you can do for your overlords, not what the Chamber was originally started for. I hope the entire Chamber goes down in flames so Americans can finally see behind the curtain and see why our health care is being held hostage for the profits of big business.

[June25]

09:59 PM on 04/28/2012

I bet a lot of celebraties will fly in to Aspen in their private jets just to thank Aspen for it's environmental stand.I would love to go myself but the traffic is hell.

[Ian OFull]

11:22 AM on 04/29/2012

You are making the high speed rail argument. Thank you.

[grappler1987]

01:52 PM on 04/28/2012

"Aspen Chamber Resort Association’s board voted 11 to 1 to withdraw its membership from the national organization."

11 to 1 ... I'm surprised they didn't withdraw sooner.

[tjconkster]

12:25 PM on 04/28/2012

The Sandia Ski Resort and Santa Fe Ski Resort had a great year! The Sandia Resort opened early and closed later than it had in years. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we had more snow than the main resorts around the country, including Aspen....I had snow from Thanksgiving still on the ground into February....we go pounded in the East Mountains....seems that this winter the weather was reversed. My family in Wisconsin and Ohio kept calling to jab me about all the snow we had....and the nice warm weather they were having...something is not right...but as long as oil, gas and coal money keep rolling in...the GOPERS will never admit it....Just look at how much they enjoy their Pink Slime!

[trailerguy]

12:13 PM on 04/28/2012

plenty of snow in washington state, send your skiers here.

[nomadrdw]

03:17 PM on 04/28/2012

you do understand that their goal is to KEEP the skiers there, and keep their own employed so they can ALL continue to eat and keep a roof over head.

[trailerguy]

06:38 PM on 04/28/2012

but still we have plenty of snow in Washington so send them our way. You can ski in the mornign and go sailing in the afternoon