The untold story of Waxman-Markey: USCAP and the green industrial complex

“These boards of directors are like a club,” said Borelli. “Lane and Mulva greatly contributed to passing Waxman-Markey. So Immelt goes laughing to the government bank, Lane is now retired and rich and Mulva is close to retiring. Nobody is going to hold them accountable for their actions.”

“Waxman-Markey absolutely would never have passed the House if it wasn’t for big business,” said Ebell.

“The CEOs didn’t do their homework,” said Borelli. “They thought they could just ride this short-term wave.”

Though some say climate-change legislation is not going to happen anytime soon, there is still a concern with the upcoming lame-duck session. There is a real worry that Congress might push through some kind of energy-oil cleanup bill during the lame-duck and merge it with the Waxman-Markey bill in the House.

But such are the policy consequences when big business gets cozy with big government. CEOs make bank and escape any kind of accountability, while unpopular legislation like cap and trade gets passed. In the case of USCAP though, a lot of the CEOs did not even know what exactly they were lobbying for and the billions in profits never materialized.

Instead, USCAP was destroyed by the very thing it was lobbying for. “And now its game over for USCAP,” said Ebell.