WASHINGTON -- Even as it faces criticism from environmental groups for efforts to drill in the Arctic, Shell Oil plans to part ways with the lobbying group American Legislative Exchange Council early next year over the controversial group's stance on climate change.
"ALEC advocates for specific economic growth initiatives, but its stance on climate change is clearly inconsistent with our own," Shell spokesman Curtis Smith told Alaska Dispatch News. "We have long recognized both the importance of the climate challenge and the critical role energy has in determining quality of life for people across the world."
Shell has a strained relationship with environmental groups over its Arctic drilling plans, but the company has long advocated for a price on carbon to deal with climate change.
ALEC has lobbied heavily in opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to limit carbon emissions, and provided model legislation passed in many states to prevent them from complying with the Clean Power Plan. Alaska's power plants will not be subject to the final rule issued last week.
Shell's membership with ALEC, which primarily connects corporations and state legislators across the country, will lapse early next year, Smith said.
"While we engage with a number of organizations on selected, and often complex, energy topics, we don't always agree on every position adopted by these organizations," Smith said.
Shell's decision to drop ALEC follows the same move by other high-profile companies, including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Occidental Petroleum, BP and others.
ALEC spokeswoman Molly Fuhs said the group continues to grow, despite companies leaving over climate change lobbying.
"ALEC is opposed to government mandates and subsidies of all types. Climate change activists have conflated our opposition to the government picking winners and losers as climate change denial, and in turn, have pressured companies to part ways with the largest and most effective group of free-market legislators in the United States," Fuhs said.
"ALEC continues to grow rapidly because the American people want less government, less regulation and more opportunity to govern themselves."