The business lobby is under attack, thanks to cap and trade.

The White House has made it clear that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce --- which represents business interests in Washington --- is "old-school" in its opposition to the House's Waxman-Markey and the Senate's Boxer-Kerry bills that punish users of coal and other fossil fuels with much higher energy costs.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce rightly has voiced its unwavering opposition to ill-conceived plans that slam Iowa and other coal-dependent regions with prohibitively higher costs.

It's simple: Cap and trade will punish all businesses and consumers across the country already coping with its worst recession in decades. But it will hit Iowa businesses and consumers with particular ferocity.

In response, the White House has branded the national business lobby "old school" and not-so-subtly suggested that its members should back away from the organization's opposition to cap and trade.

Several companies wilted and abandoned the chamber.

Iowa's Republican senator, Charles Grassley, recognizes the folly of cap and trade and said so in a news conference last Tuesday. He told reporters he has conveyed to Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and John Kerry, D-Mass., a message that everybody with an ounce of common sense already knows --- and the Congressional Budget Office has confirmed: Cap and trade will hammer Iowa and other Midwestern states while rewarding the East and West coasts.

Grassley made it clear in his news conference that "a cap-and-trade system will result in higher electricity costs."

He said the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Boxer-Kerry proposal employ a "strange formula," wherein the West and East coasts "make out like bandits while the Midwest, who need relatively more (carbon) allowances, will actually get less."

The result? An unfair wealth transfer to the East and West at the expense of other regions.

To their great credit, the Greater Cedar Valley Chamber of Commerce and its parent, the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance, stand in firm opposition to cap and trade.

And, why wouldn't they? Their members --- and members' customers --- would suffer undue hardship under this travesty.

"It's unfortunate because any professional associations like the chamber are looking for ways to make good federal policy, and for those kinds of walls to be constructed doesn't benefit anyone," said Steve Dust, CEO of the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance.

Local chamber members are not wavering in their support of the organization, Dust said.

"More businesses are asking us to be their voice in kind of an emphatic way," he said. "People are focused on economic recovery and building businesses."

This is a watershed moment in the nation's history. Business is in the middle of determining in how quickly the U.S. fights its way out of the "Great Recession." Vigilant opposition to bad ideas like cap and trade will go far in shortening the struggle.