Groups pressure Disney, Pepsi, the Gap to quit U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Working together, several activist groups — Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Action on Smoking and Health, and Public Citizen — are urging the CEOs of Pepsi, the Gap, and Disney to quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The coalition says the chamber, the largest lobbying group in the U.S. and biggest business organization in the world, is actively working to promote tobacco products and fight legislation that combats climate change. In a letter to Disney's Bob Iger, the coalition said that while his company has committed to reducing its net greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2020, the Chamber of Commerce opposes the Paris climate agreement, is suing to block the implementation of the Clean Power Plan, regularly lobbies against legislation that seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and spends millions on ads to elect candidates who support the fossil fuel industry, The Guardian reports.

In recent years, 13 of the biggest companies in the world — including Starbucks, Costco, Mattel, Mars, General Mills, Hewlett-Packard, and Unilever — have left the chamber, Public Citizen said. In 2015, CVS, the first major drugstore to stop selling tobacco products, quit the chamber once the company found out the organization was lobbying foreign governments to ease restrictions on tobacco sales. Dan Dudis of Public Citizen told The Guardian this is just the beginning of an effort to get members to exit the chamber, which is pushing "the interests of a minority."

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