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How about this? Former US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP, a Batptists and Bootleggers coalition if ever there was one) member, cap-and-trade energy rationing lobbyist Caterpillar, is buying mining equipment manufacturer Bucyrus. Surely you remember them?

This comes on the heels of CAT slipping away from USCAP, which in turn came after admirably dogged education campaign and pursuit for explanation of the peacocking boondoggle by Tom Borelli.

Yes, yes, this is styled as “Caterpillar is expanding its mining business as coal and metals producers raise investment to meet growing demand from emerging economies.” (Bloomberg, emphasis added). But I wouldn’t read too much into that; that’s where the growth is now and, sadly, for the foreseeable.

To pretend that this does not signal that CAT’s inane, admittedly not well-considered flirtation with a politically correct agenda is finished is to ignore as much as all manner of CEOs had to ignore in order to buy their consultants’ advice that cap-n-trade was ‘inevitable’ so they’d better try to cut some deal getting goodies in return for support. All they got in return for this expensive, absurd advice was a black eye for the reputation-harming pose it led to (more than a few customers I met contacted both CAT and John Deere, furious, to ask, ‘do you even know who your customers are?’). Others among us gave them much better, free advice that it would prove to be BTU II.

CCX, Caterpillar…who is next on the cap-and-trade pantheon to fall from Olympus?

View all comments (3) |

RickS| 11.15.10 @ 6:41PM

I toured the Black Thunder coal mine near Gillette, Wyoming last week. It's the largest open pit mine in the country. One of the employees there told us that the day before they had given a tour to some executives from Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway. Apparently they were pretty stoked about the demise of cap and trade with the new Congress coming in and were probably going to make a significant investment in coal.

Occam's Tool| 11.15.10 @ 11:22PM

Since Buffett was an Obama supporter, a significant investment in coal is the least Berkshire can do to make amends.

JP| 11.16.10 @ 7:14AM

Government favors, subsidies, and set-asides are the only growth industry left in this nation.

More Blog Posts by Chris Horner

http://spectator.org/blog/2010/11/15/rent-seeking-once-you-go-uscap

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