Labor unions using environmental restrictions to unionize builders of new power plants

"Two competing solar power companies, Ausra and BrightSource Energy, recently filed plans to build plants in the California desert. Both firms’ plans affected wildlife habitat. But only Ausra’s plans were hit with complaints demanding expensive and cumbersome environmental studies. The reason? Ausra had rejected demands that it use only union workers to build its solar farm, while BrightSource pledged to hire labor-friendly contractors.

As the New York Times reports today, big labor is using California’s environmental regulations to shake down power companies trying to build new plants in the state: “If they refuse, they say, they can count on the union group to demand costly environmental studies and deliver hostile testimony at public hearings. If they commit at the outset to use union labor, they say, the environmental objections never materialize.” As harmful as this racket is to California’s economy, new regulations proposed by the Obama administration will empower other special interest groups to shake down businesses nationwide.

In April of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency began the process of regulating greenhouse gasses by classifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant pursuant to the Clean Air Act.

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The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis has estimated that if the EPA regulated carbon objectively under the law, the economy would suffer annual job losses exceeding 800,000 for several years and a cumulative GDP loss of $7 trillion by 2029."

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/06/19/morning-bell
-stop-enviro-crony-capitalismstop-the-epa/