Earlier this month, ConocoPhillips the first domestic oil company to join the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a corporate call-to-arms aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions...

Until recently, big business has insisted that emissions reductions be voluntary. What, then, converted these companies into believers in government intervention?

For one thing, companies are realizing they will be affected by some sort of emissions control no matter how much of a fuss they make. Under voluntary controls, little progress toward emissions reduction has been achieved, aside from a handful of hybrid cars cruising clogged highways, feeding on a cocktail of unleaded gasoline spruced with ethanol...

The other factor convincing companies to support federal activism is their fear of the unknown. A host of regulatory options have been introduced that would have widely varying consequences for companies that emit greenhouse gasses...

Companies worry that operating under varying state systems would be impossibly complicated. For example, the automobile sector would have to build cars for the strictest emissions environment, because it couldn't easily build different cars to fit different state rules...

"Businesses are now in the awkward position of seeking federal protection from the states," said Terry Tammimen, director of the Climate Policy Program at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based public policy group...

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