We’ve got an update on the Companies Lobbying to Raise Your Energy Taxes.

As Energy and Environment reports, “Several U.S. companies recently joined together to form Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), which is lobbying Congress for tough standards on emissions, renewable energy and energy efficiency.”

That is, we have a sister organization to USCAP, which consists mostly of rent-seekers (Natural Resources Defense Council, General Motors Corp., Duke Energy Corp., ConocoPhillips, and Dow Chemical Co.) — though the CEO of one USCAP member, Caterpillar, James Owens, has been asked repeatedly why he would sanction such a move, given that Caterpillar sells its equipment to the industries targeted by this wish-list for extinction, could only muster a repetitive “it was a very difficult decision” and that, no, Caterpillar did not bother looking at the costs to the company if they are successful. Just in case you were wondering if this was mindless posturing.

“Gap Inc., eBay Inc. and Symantec Corp. said [last week] that they are joining BICEP, a corporate coalition that is lobbying Congress to pass by year’s end a mandatory, economywide cap-and-trade program to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.”

BICEP founders include the consumer products companies Levi Strauss & Co., usual-suspect “corporate social responsibility” poseur Nike Inc., as well as Starbucks Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Timberland Co.

They all think it’s pretty hip to demand government intervention to force Al Gore’s “wrenching transformation of society”.

These companies are lobbying to increase your energy taxes and costs, significantly and immediately.