Very Cool: Sierra Club Goes to Bat on Employee Free Choice Act

This would REALLY be "very cool" (0.00 / 0)

You know what would really be "very cool?"

If a local union rep wouldn't be lobbying in Washington DC to give the US Pulp and Paper Industry $10 billion in taxpayer money to burn an extra 20 billion gallons of diesel fuel! That'd be "very cool!"

Or how about if in the inversion-prone Missoula Valley, us taxpayers weren't forced to give Smurfit-Stone Container's mill $50 million to burn an extra 100,000,000 gallons of diesel fuel! That's enough extra diesel fuel burned to give 5 million trucks a 20 gallon fill up!! Seriously, that'd  be "very cool" if the local union rep wouldn't be lobbying for such draconian, fiscally and environmentally irresponsible and selfish policies. See: http://tinyurl.com/km9db9.

Thanks.

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by: Matthew Koehler @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 15:29:05 PM UTC

I'm not following you Jed... (0.00 / 0)

And I'm not sure what your questions really pertain to.

First off, I'm not shooting anyone or calling anyone a "badman." What I'm doing is raising some issues with the fact that a local union rep is proudly lobbying for the US Pulp and Paper Industry to be given $10 billion in taxpayer money to burn an extra 20 billion gallons of diesel fuel. Seems like a pretty egregious taxpayer financed boondoggle if you ask me. A boondoggle, which of course, has the added bummer of burning through an extra 20 billion gallons of diesel, increasing pollution and our dependence on fossil fuels.   A US Treasury official quoted in a recent Wall Street Journal article said, "Right now this does appear to be a transfer from the taxpayers to this industry."  Talk about a "redistribution of wealth?"

Perhaps since the local union rep is such a nice guy and so involved with the local democratic party I should have just said nothing and let the Pulp and Paper Industry get $10 billion of our tax dollars to burn an extra 20 billion gallons of diesel...but that's just not my nature.

I've been involved with plenty of blue-green stuff over the years and I've made some observations based on that experience. Seems to me as if that relationship is often times a one-way street where the enviros are asked to support unions and union-issues, but often the unions never end up supporting good enviro causes or issues...or as in the case of the $10 billion tax credit/20 billion gallons of extra diesel burned the unions actually support what I would consider to be an anti-environmental, anti-sustainable cause.

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by: Matthew Koehler @ Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 18:57:20 PM UTC

Jed, I appreciate you responding.... (0.00 / 0)

with some more information about where you're coming from...even if that included me being called a "Reagan Democrat," which I'm 100% positive that I am not.  

However, I do agree with much of what you've said RE: "the impotence of Democratic executives/legislators" and "Montanans short-sighted look at industry", etc.   I also believe that over the year's I've written and spoken plenty about why elected officials (whether Democrats or Republicans) "have not moved more aggressively" to end anti-environmental programs/processes while promoting more sustainable ones.  As I'm sure you're well aware, the answer can be summed up simply with the cliquche "Follow the Money."

Finally, I guess I still don't understand why you were apparently so upset with my sharing the Missoula Indy article about the local union rep going to DC to lobby for this $10 billion tax credit for his industry.  After all, this tax credit not only means that every man, woman and child in the US is handing over $30 a piece to the pulp and paper industry, but it also contains the added insult of  burning billions and billions of extra gallons of diesel, including a substantial amount right here in our fair (and inversion-prone) valley.  Seems like fair game to me, especially when the local daily newspaper, the Missoulian, has ignored this story completely for the past 6 weeks. I guess Smurfit-Stone getting $543 million from taxpayers to burn extra diesel isn't as newsworthy as the Governor emerging from a closed door meeting with Smurfit executives to declare that we need to log another 15,000 acres of national forests!

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by: Matthew Koehler @ Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 14:37:20 PM UTC