Business Can’t Afford a ‘Wasted Year’

Most folks think Congress will take little action on important issues this year because both the White House and Capitol Hill are preoccupied with the 2012 elections.

“We hope to change that,” said Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber has the firepower to force action—it spends more money than any other organization on lobbying, and it’s gearing up for another massive “voter education” effort during this year’s congressional campaigns.

Action is necessary because the economy can’t afford a “wasted year,” said Tom Donohue, the Chamber’s president and CEO.

Donohue today delivered his annual “State of American Business” address. That state is “improving—but it is doing so weakly, slowly, and insufficiently to put our nation back to work,” he said.

Part of the problem is that small businesses “have put the brakes on new hiring” because of concerns about new regulations and higher taxes, he said. The Chamber will continue to fight the “regulatory avalanche confronting our job creators” and will push for extension of lower individual income tax rates, which expire at the end of the year. If these rates go up, “it would have a devastating impact on small businesses, consumers, and our efforts to grow and create jobs,” Donohue said.

There’s a good chance, however, that Congress won’t decide the fate of these tax rates, as well as tax rates on capital gains and dividends, until after the November elections.

“That’s a little scary to contemplate,” Josten said.

Other decisions affecting job creation should occur much sooner, according to the Chamber. Josten noted that President Barack Obama hosted an event yesterday promoting American businesses that have moved jobs back to the United States, but he said Obama missed one of America’s “easiest insourcing opportunities”—approving the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries in the United States.

The pipeline would put “20,000 Americans to work right away, and up to 250,000 over the life of the project,” Donohue said.

“This project has passed every environmental test. There is no legitimate reason—none at all—to subject it to further delay,” he said.

Congress has required the president to make a decision on the pipeline by the end of February.

“The smart thing to do would be to approve it,” Josten said.

Energy tops the Chamber’s agenda for the year.

“Our nation is on the cusp of an energy boom that is already creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, revitalizing entire communities, and reinvigorating American manufacturing,” Donohue said.

“With the right policies, the oil and natural-gas industry could create more than 1 million jobs by 2018,” he said.

Besides building the Keystone pipeline, those policies include speeding approval of drilling permits, opening more areas of the country to oil and natural-gas exploration, and opposing regulation of hydraulic fracturing, a controversial technique used to tap oil and natural gas in deep shale formations.

Other issues that need immediate action, according to the Chamber, are reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, including development of the new NextGen air-traffic control system and renewal of federal programs funding highways, bridges, and transit systems.

The Chamber has been a strong supporter of the Stop Online Piracy Act, legislation designed to stop foreign websites from selling pirated movies or counterfeit drugs. Many Internet companies, including Google and Facebook, oppose this bill, however. They contend forcing Internet companies to police their users would hurt innovation and lead to censorship.

Donohue today indicated that the Chamber is willing to work with the Internet industry to address these concerns.

“We’re going to get it right,” he said.

The Chamber doesn’t get involved in presidential politics. But when asked, Donohue said he was “very disappointed” in the attacks on Mitt Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital, by Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. Even though some of the companies acquired by Bain ended up failing, its overall track record is “damn good,” Donohue said.

Risk is part of capitalism, he said, so it’s “foolish for Republicans to carry on that line of attack.” Donohue expects these attacks to die down soon.

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Kent Hoover is the Washington bureau chief for bizjournals.