Business group fills panel slots

Still, business groups and the administration are on the same page when it comes to passing the pending trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, which are expected to get congressional action this week.

{mosads}In a release, Oberhelman signaled that, beyond assuring those pacts gain congressional approval, he and his committee will also work to gain more access for American goods in other markets.

“With 95 percent of the world’s consumers living outside the United States, expanding market access for American companies and workers to sell products and services to these customers is essential to U.S. job creation and economic growth,” Jim McNerney of Boeing, the Business Roundtable’s chairman, said in his own statement.

Tillerson, meanwhile, comes to the Roundtable’s newly shaped education committee as the energy sector continues to fight Democratic attempts to rein in tax preferences for the oil-and-gas industry. The Roundtable is part of a coalition pushing to sharply increase the number of Americans who earn bachelor’s degrees in science and math.

Cote, who served on the president’s fiscal commission, said in a Monday statement that he believed a balanced approach to energy and the environment could lead both to more jobs and more environmental protection.

The Roundtable also announced Monday that Ursula Burns of Xerox, the first black woman to head a major U.S. corporation, was joining its executive committee. The group has several other CEO-led committees, looking into areas like regulation and tax policy.