{"id":8898,"date":"2011-03-14T12:53:54","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T16:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=8898"},"modified":"2011-03-14T13:17:32","modified_gmt":"2011-03-14T17:17:32","slug":"unions-environmentalists-at-war-over-epa-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/8898\/unions-environmentalists-at-war-over-epa-regulations\/","title":{"rendered":"Unions, Environmentalists at War over EPA Regulations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since at least the FDR era, the Democratic Party has served as an umbrella for a motley coalition of special interest groups that have only one thing in common: demanding action from government.\u00a0 Most of the time, the competing priorities of the groups don\u2019t come into direct conflict.\u00a0 But when they do, it is a delight to sit back and watch each carve up the other.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s example comes from the pages of the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>.\u00a0 Apparently, businesses in the energy sector aren\u2019t the only ones fighting the Obama Administration\u2019s job-killing EPA regulations.\u00a0 Labor unions like the Utility Workers Union of America and the United Mine Workers are <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748704076804576180384094409812.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5\" target=\"_blank\">demanding a ceasefire on cap-it-or-close-it regulations<\/a> that could force companies to close 18% of the nation\u2019s coal factories if they fail to comply with the EPA\u2019s proposed climate change rules.<\/p>\n<p>Unions recognize that without factories workers get fired.\u00a0 Environmentalists don\u2019t want to budge on what the Natural Resources Defense Council calls \u201cthe biggest public health achievement\u201d of the Obama Administration.<\/p>\n<p>Simple math is likely to break the stalemate.\u00a0 Unions in coal states account for millions of campaign contributions and thousands of votes.\u00a0 With Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all flipping from Obama in 2008 to the Republicans in 2010, don\u2019t count on the president to sacrifice his reelection chances on the altar of green jobs.<\/p>\n<p>If he does, union voters \u2013 and their dollars \u2013 just might stay home in 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since at least the FDR era, the Democratic Party has served as an umbrella for a motley coalition of special interest groups that have only one thing in common: demanding action from government.\u00a0 Most of the time, the competing priorities of the groups don\u2019t come into direct conflict.\u00a0 But when they do, it is a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[841,143,26,2115,195,246,301,451,814,1793,1085,419,1500],"class_list":["post-8898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2012-elections","tag-barack-obama","tag-climate-change","tag-coal","tag-energy","tag-environmental-protection-agency-epa","tag-environmentalism","tag-green-jobs","tag-michigan","tag-ohio","tag-pennsylvania","tag-unions","tag-wisconsin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8898"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8903,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8898\/revisions\/8903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}