New coalitions lobby Congress on health care, environment, minimum wage.

By Marilyn Geewax
Cox News Service, 2/14/07

WASHINGTON - As partisanship chills the cooperative mood the new Congress enjoyed in its first weeks, frustrated business executives are working in unusual coalitions with labor leaders and environmentalists to push for compromises.

Consider a few recent examples:

- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. CEO Lee Scott this month joined one of his harshest critics, Service Employees International Union president Andrew Stern, in announcing they would press Congress to develop a system to provide low-cost health coverage for all Americans.

- Ten major corporations have banded together with environmental groups to call for a nationwide limit on carbon dioxide emission, and creation of a market for trading allowances to emit the greenhouse gas.

- Dozens of employers, including Costco Wholesale Corp., have been working with a coalition that includes faith and labor leaders to prod lawmakers into approving a higher federal minimum wage.

These unlikely coalitions face a difficult task, given the rise in partisan rancor as Congress debates the Iraq war, taxes and other issues.

Just last month, "there was a group of us trying to work together in good faith" to develop a bipartisan blueprint to improve the long-term budget outlook, said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

But now, he has become pessimistic because both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have said that compromise on tax hikes isn't possible.

Bargaining from that position is hard, Conrad said, because of bad blood. In recent elections, Bush and Cheney "practically called us traitors," he said. "That makes it hard to work together now."

But Norman Ornstein, co-author of a book on congressional dysfunction, "The Broken Branch," said that the creation of private-sector alliances could play a constructive role in getting Congress on a bipartisan track this year. "The signal that it sends is: 'This is a big enough problem that people really want solutions,' " he said.

Having business, labor and environmental leaders point out common ground can help show political leaders a path to successes on domestic policy. "All they are saying is: 'Here are some steps we can take together,'" Ornstein said.

That might motivate Congress to shake off its "do-nothing" reputation while giving Bush a chance to regain some popularity, he said.

For a president with very low poll ratings and only two years left to serve, "this is legacy time," Ornstein said. "He knows that if he doesn't do something now, his only legacy will be Iraq."

Dave Douglas, vice president for Eco-Responsibility for Sun Microsystems Inc., was in Washington last week to speak to the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit coalition of business, government and environmental leaders. He said alliance-building is getting easier between corporations and environmentalists, even if lawmakers can't get past their antagonism.

That's because environmentalists can see that to reduce pollution, "you could get rid of all businesses, but that wouldn't offer a sustainable future that many people would want to live with," he said.

On other hand, businesses are finding that by listening to environmentalists' suggestions, they can lower energy use and save money. "There is a very open dialogue going on now," he said.

Still, some question whether such alliances offer more public-relations hype than real hope for compromise.

Critics point to 10 major corporations that have joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership to push for capping carbon dioxide emissions. The group includes large utilities such as FPL Group of Florida and Duke Energy in North Carolina, as well as BP America, an oil company.

Leo Hindery, managing partner of InterMedia Partners VII LLC, a firm that invests in media companies, questions whether huge companies such as Wal-Mart and BP would support sweeping changes in health-care and environmental laws if Congress were to institute them.

"I compliment them, but I also say, don't read too much into surface behaviors," Hindery said. Others say it's important to see whether companies act to limit their own greenhouse gas emissions or whether they use lobbyists to thwart legislation that could make a real difference.

Hindery chairs the Horizon Project, a group of corporate and foundation leaders who recently released legislative recommendations for the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. He said that when business leaders are truly committed to compromising with workers and environmentalists, they can serve as a locomotive to pull Congress along.

But for now, "this is still a small train," he said.

On the Web:

Better Health Care Together: www.seiu.org/media/bhct_priniples.cfm

U.S. Climate Action Partnership: www.us-cap.org

Minimum-wage advocates: www.businessforafairminimumwage.org

Marilyn Geewax's e-mail address is marilyng@coxnews.com

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