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Apple Inc. and three other members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce quit over the chamber's opposition to climate-change legislation.
President Barack Obama denounced the Chamber for "spending millions" to kill a planned consumer financial protection agency.
Tom Donohue, the 71-year-old president of the nation's largest business lobbying organization, responded by doing what critics and admirers alike say he does best: using a fight to raise money for the Chamber's agenda.
After the criticism over the climate bill, Donohue mounted a public relations blitz and bashed detractors. He invited reporters to hash over the issue and hosted Chamber talks with Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and economic adviser Larry Summers.
He also told a Wall Street Journal columnist that critics expecting him to back off should "put their damn helmets on." He then deployed the Washington-based group's Web site to rally the troops. "Help Stop Attacks on the U.S. Chamber," the site says. "Liberal left-wing extremist groups and their leftist allies continue their attacks. Don't let them muzzle us."
The solution proposed by the organization, whose 300,000 members include Wal-Mart, Caterpillar Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp.: Send money.
It worked, according to a Chamber official who declined to be identified discussing internal fundraising. While the four companies that quit paid annual dues totaling $150,000, the Chamber used the uproar to recruit six members paying a combined $750,000 a year.
Waging such battles is what Chamber members expect, and why they pay dues, Donohue says.
Donohue, who was paid $3.2 million by the Chamber in 2007, the most recent year on record, said he has built the group's annual budget to $200 million today from $40 million when he took over in 1997.
The Chamber is the biggest spender among Washington lobbyists, shelling out $65 million in the first nine months of this year, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That's more than the combined total of the next three biggest spenders, Exxon Mobil Corp., the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and General Electric Co., which each spent about $20 million.
The Chamber has 92 registered lobbyists on its staff and uses 21 outside lobbying firms.
The climate-change issue erupted when PG&E Corp., parent of California's largest utility, quit the Chamber for opposing legislation passed by the U.S. House. Apple, Exelon Corp. - owner of the largest number of U.S. nuclear power plants - and PNM Resources Inc., New Mexico's biggest utility company, also said they were quitting.
