Commerce sours Apple

Apple recently parted ways with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over global warming views, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

The Cupertino-based company is the fourth company—but the largest and only technology company—to resign from the chamber over the chamber’s opposition to federal efforts to limit greenhouse gases.

Peter Altman of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit, non-partisan international environmental advocacy group, said Apple’s decision reflects a trend in the business community that strong clean-energy and climate legislation will strengthen the economy and reduce oil imports and pollution.

He added that the chamber is “turning a deaf ear to the trend.”

The chamber is the world’s largest business federation. Membership is voluntary and there are no concrete consequences for quitting. The group has been under scrutiny the past few weeks for opposing an Environmental Protection Agency plan that would allow the EPA to impose stronger greenhouse-gas regulations on 14,000 coal-burning power plants.