Enterprise Rent-A-Car becomes paid Alec member despite green efforts

It’s not easy enough being green for Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

Though the auto rental service has trumpeted tree-planting initiatives and its fleet of hybrid vehicles, the Guardian has learned that Enterprise recently became a paying member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), the business consortium that sends legislators prefabricated drafts of laws tailored to obscure scientific discovery that might damage its members’ revenues, and help those members avoid environmental regulations.

The Center for Media and Democracy’s Nick Surgey brought Enterprise’s membership in Alec to the Guardian’s attention. Surgey said that Enterprise initially claimed not to know about Alec’s positions on renewable energy and that he found those claims “frankly implausible”.

“For us, the argument over whether global warming is a problem or not is over,” said Andy Taylor, at the time Enterprise’s CEO, in 2007. By contrast, the group of conservative businesses published an article called “A Review of Global Warming Science” expressing skepticism and promoted an article by the Competitive Enterprise Institute that same year that said there was “no ‘scientific consensus’ [quotes theirs] that global warming will cause damaging climate change.”

Climate models characterized as inaccurate by climate change skeptics are currently accurately predicting changes in ocean heat accumulation.

Alec has also vigorously attacked sustainable energy programs, proposing financial penalties for people who supply solar energy to their neighborhoods.

Enterprise is a subsidiary of Enterprise Holdings, the company that also owns the auto rental services Alamo and National.

Enterprise confirmed to the Guardian that the company pays for the anti-regulatory group’s advocacy to lawmakers. The company’s given reason was the avoidance of specific sales taxes. Spokeswoman Laura T Bryant said: “[P]lease understand that our relationship with Alec is solely focused on the car rental excise tax issue.”

“As the world’s largest car rental company and a leader in the global travel industry, we are in a strong position to help drive sustainable travel solutions and policies around the globe,” writes Enterprise Holdings CEO Pam Nicholson in the letter that opens Enterprise’s 2015 sustainability report, which lists Enterprise’s accomplishments in the realm of renewable and sustainable energy. “That’s why customers and employees look to us to be responsible stewards of our business and the communities where we live and work.”

In 2013, the Guardian revealed that Alec had promoted legislation financially penalizing people who installed solar panels on their homes, including charging homeowners with solar power for feeding electricity back into the grid where it could be used by other people.

“They should be paying to distribute the surplus electricity,” Alec analyst John Eick said at the time.

Last year, Alec brass told the group’s annual conference that reports of the decline of insect pollinators due to pesticides was overblown in a talk called “Beepocalypse Not” in San Diego.

In February, a United Nations report jointly authored by dozens of experts from across the world found that exposure to pesticides and saturation in pesticides was a “well-established” cause of decline in populations of pollinators such as bees.

Several high-profile donors including Ford, BP and Expedia have left the group despite its hardcore anti-tax stances. Enterprise wants to avoid taxes on car rentals; local politicians often tout those taxes as a way to transfer part of the tax burden from local residents to tourists and businesses in the area temporarily.