“Less money spent at the pump means more money for the U.S. economy and more jobs. The weaker the standard, the fewer the jobs that will be created.”

That’s according to Peyton Fleming, spokesman for the NGO Ceres.

Preliminary data by Ceres finds that a 6% annual increase in the fuel economy limits would save Americans $152 billion over the next two decades at the gas pump compared with status quo regulations.  The full report is set to be released in late July.

In a press release, Ceres reports:

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In a 3-to-2 vote, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission determined today that companies “must consider the effects of global warming and efforts to curb climate change when disclosing business risks to investors.”

Guidelines approved today require companies to weigh the impact of climate-change laws and regulations when assessing what information to disclose, the commission said. The SEC is responding to investors who said companies aren’t providing enough data on the potential risks to their profits and operations from environmental- protection laws. In the 3-to-2 vote, the commission said companies in the U.S. should also consider international accords, indirect effects such as lower demand for goods that produce greenhouse gases, and physical impacts such as the potential for increased insurance claims in coastal regions as a result of rising sea levels.

Ceres, a network of investors and climate activists, hailed the action as “the first economy-wide climate risk disclosure requirement in the world.” More than a dozen investors managing over $1 trillion in assets, plus Ceres and the Environmental Defense Fund, requested formal guidance in a petition filed with the Commission in 2007, and supported by supplemental petitions filed in 2008 and 2009.

For too long, the reality of climate change has been ignored by American business, exemplified by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s denial of global warming. This willful ignorance has left American business — from agriculture to the financial sector — unprepared for the increasing damages of climate change, such as sea level rise, drought and wildfires. Furthermore, these blinders have kept American business behind international competitors, who have leapt ahead by investing in the coming low-carbon economy.

Chamber of Commerce senior vice president Bill Kovacs, under fire for his opposition to the regulation of global warming pollution, has claimed that the Obama administration is suppressing evidence that climate change isn’t really a threat. In a debate with Ceres CEO Mindy Lubber about the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act, Kovacs argued that any debate of “the consequences” of greenhouse gas pollution is “ridiculed” by “those who have already decided on a course of action and fear any discussion which may cast doubt on their decision“:

No better example of this can be found than the Environmental Protection Agency’s April finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. It turns out that when the EPA issued their finding about the impact of greenhouse gases, they didn’t tell the whole story. They routinely ignored relevant, credible scientific information that contradicted their findings, including information generated by the agency’s own staff. Cherry-picking only the evidence that bolsters your claim is the opposite of scientific integrity, transparency, and openness. . . The wrong way would be to impose barely debated, ineffective, and burdensome new regulations based on shaky, selective data.

Kovacs is alluding to work of Alan Carlin, an economist for EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics. Carlin had plagiarized arguments from right-wing blogs that the world’s climate scientists are wrong about global warming. The right-wing Competitive Enterprise Institute promoted Carlin’s report and the false story that his work was being unfairly suppressed. CBS News and Fox News then pushed Carlin’s tale of woe.

By asserting that the ravings of oil-funded climate deniers like Ken Gregory, Pat Michaels, and Chip Knappenberger are “relevant, credible scientific information,” Kovacs is embarassing himself and the Chamber, supposedly “the world’s largest business federation” and the “voice of business.” This reactionary behavior is leading forward-thinking corporations like Nike and Johnson & Johnson to break with the Chamber, and support Mindy Lubber’s attempt to bring American business into the 21st century.