Dear Ms. Hawes: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce (“the Chamber”) strongly urges a comment period extension of at least 60 days on the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s), General Services Administration’s (GSA’s), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) proposed rule to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to require certain federal contractors to “disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risk and set science-based targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions” (“Proposed Rule”). [1]
The Chamber represents a broad swatch of businesses including federal contractors large and small that provide products and services across industries such as aerospace and defense, telecommunications, information technology, engineering services, food and hospitality, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, healthcare, energy, and much more. Businesses are working along with governments and citizens in a growing effort to combat climate change. Working together will help to develop, finance, build, and operate the solutions needed to power economic growth worldwide, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and build a resilient, lower-carbon future. We continue to actively collaborate with our members and other stakeholders to promote practices, policies, and technology innovations across industry and government that address our shared climate challenges, particularly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the pace of innovation. Thousands of businesses are already taking action in their own operations and along their value chains by investing in technology solutions and other innovations and approaches.