The Sacramento Bee profiles the new executive director of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune, who comes on board the country’s largest environmental organization on March 15. Citing Brune’s prior leadership at the radical, fond-of-disruption Rain Forest Action Network, the Bee’s story is headlined, “New leader looks to fire up Sierra Club.”

By powering down the United States.

At the heart of that struggle, Brune says, lies America’s continued dependence on coal-fired electricity plants – plants which currently provide an estimated 45 percent of the nation’s energy but which are a major sources of greenhouse gas emissions…[snip]

“We must replace dirty coal in this country,” Brune said. “We must continue this fight until we convince our political and industry leaders that there are more economic benefits to be had by transitioning to wind power and other forms of clean energy.”

It’s fantasy to argue that “wind power and other forms of clean energy” can supplant coal, especially when Brune — as reported in this NewJerseyNews.com profile — opposes nuclear power.

Here’s what the Energy Information Administration had to say in its annual energy outlook about coal’s future role in the U.S. economy through 2035:

Total coal consumption increases from 22.4 quadrillion Btu (1,122 million short tons) in 2008 to 25.6 quadrillion Btu (1,319 million short tons) in 2035 in the AEO2010 reference case. Coal consumption, mostly for electric power generation, grows gradually throughout the projection period, as existing plants are used more intensively, and new plants, which are already under construction, are completed and enter service.

Brune’s leadership involves getting arrested in flashy protest actions with the usual suspects like Darryl Hannah and James Hansen.

Funny, too, that Brune rises to power advocating extreme action even as the anti-energy climate activists are in retreat scientifically and politically. When even The Washington Post has to acknowledge the seriously flawed “evidence”* being used to push a global economic restructuring — page one Monday, “Series of missteps by climate scientists threatens climate-change agenda” — then the movement is losing steam. Can a radical program of civil disobedience fire up the more mainstream Sierra Club or just cost it members?

The new head of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune, intends to bring a more aggressive, anti-business activism to the nation’s largest environmental organization.

Yes, if there’s one thing America doesn’t have enough of, it’s radical environmental groups campaigning against economic activity and jobs.

Grist, an activist web/newsite, interviews Michael Brune in a  report, ”New Sierra Club chief brings confrontational style to the job.” Staff writer Jonathan Hiskes provides the context:

The Sierra Club’s new leader will come to the job with a record of “environmental agitation” against big industrial polluters.  The group announced on Wednesday that Michael Brune, 38, currently head of Rainforest Action Network (RAN), will replace Carl Pope as executive director as of March 15. Brunehoned RAN’s strategy of negotiating politely with corporate heavyweights such as Bank of America, Citigroup, and General Motors—and then, if they don’t clean up their acts, campaigning mercilessly against them. The two-pronged approach earned results that belie RAN’s modest size—it helped convince Home Depot to stop selling wood from endangered forests, for example.

Brune spoke to me about his plans to bring similar ferocity to the comparatively mild Sierra Club, the nation’s largest environmental group, which claims 1.3 million members. With its self-governing regional chapters, its way-outside-the-beltway headquarters in San Francisco, and a smaller D.C. policy shop than other Big Green groups, the Sierra Club has always relied more on grassroots advocacy than direct work with Congress.

 And from the subsequent Q&A:

Q: What habits and ways of thinking—perhaps acquired in the ‘60s—does the movement need to shed?

A: I’m reluctant to criticize folks on whose shoulders we’re standing. The work that was done in the ‘60s and ‘70s might be a little outdated, perhaps, but the results have improved the lives of millions of people.

That said, there is important work to be done in the near term, such as isolating the corporations and public institutions that are most resistant to change, that are most aggressively fighting to maintain a failing status quo.

The name Saul Alinsky has been thrown around a lot over the past few years, as left-wing activists like  — and more recently, some conservative activists — draw inspiration from the dead labor/community organizer’s “Rules for Radicals.” And while there are many radical traditions, Brune’s comments and use of words like “isolating” smack of Alinsky’s strategy and tactics, such as his ’60s campaign against Eastman-Kodak in Rochester, N.Y.

We assert that most Americans aren’t radical, dislike the demonization of American employers, and reject the full-scale social transformation promoted by the more extreme environmental groups. The Sierra Club could find itself marginalized, or at least a smaller organization, under the new leadership. But no doubt the organization’s board of directors thought this through and made a choice.

UPDATE (11:35 a.m.): Sierra Club’s news release, soft-sell bio and Q&A.

Needed electricity? Good jobs? Economic growth in a struggling area of Virginia?

Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s proposed Cypress Creek Power Station in Dendron, Va., would accomplish all those good things. According to ODEC’s thorough website for the project, www.cypresscreekpowerstation.com (and fact sheet), the project entails constructing a one- or two-unit base load electric generation facility yielding 750 MW to 1,500 MW of power by 2016. Peak construction would put more than 2,000 people to work, and permanent operations would require 200 full-time employees, with potentially 160 being local hires.

The plant would be fueled by coal and biomass, i.e., wood waste. Of course, coal invites reactive opposition — but mostly from outside the immediate region. (Driving through that part of Southeastern Virginia last weekend, we saw many more signs supporting the plant than opposing.)

The Smithfield Times covered the Surry County Planning Commission’s five-hour hearing Monday, leading the week’s paper with the story, “Marathon hearing on coal plant“:

Many of the plant’s outspoken opponents were from outside Surry County. A sizeable number were students at The College of William and Mary and environmentalists with groups such as the Sierra Club.

Some plant supporters complained about the high number of non-Surry residents at the meeting.

“I’m sick and tired of outsiders coming in here and telling us what to do,” Surry resident Barbara Seward said.

She and other supporters said that the environmental and health risks were being exaggerated, that they trusted ODEC to be a good corporate citizen, and that the community in a time of economic hardship.

Of course, you don’t have to be a local resident to exercise your First Amendment rights, but the outside opposition still seems arrogant and elitist. Critics show no sensitivity to important “environmental justice” issues.

You know, “environmental justice?” It’s usually the rallying cry of those who claim businesses construct operations in poor or minority communities to exploit the communities’ powerlessness. It’s divisive class warfare, often part of a shakedown for government largess, and unfortunately given a federal imprimatur going back to the George H.W. Bush Administration in 1992 and most lately reaffirmed by President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency. But since the slogan is what counts for argumentation these days …

• It’s a just cause to support jobs, strong communities and the supply of reliable baseload electricity.
• OEDC is not-for-profit, member-owned cooperative, meeting the public’s demand for power.
• We know the Sierra Club’s goal is a world with no coal, making electricity more expensive and hurting low-income ratepayers.
• But who in the hell do the pampered kids at William and Mary think they are?

The conclusion is clear: It’s the supporters of the Cypress Creek Power Station who have “environmental justice” on their side.

Sure seems like the goal, at least in California. And since California’s policies are setting the model for the entire United States…

From The Chico Enterprise Record, “Global warming, housing density hot topics at Friday seminar“:

RED BLUFF — North state officials remain concerned about the relationship between sprawl and California’s global warming laws after a presentation Friday.

Dan Zack, downtown development coordinator for Redwood City, told the group that combined with insulation that saves on energy costs, urban, multi-family homes are responsible for about half as many greenhouse gas emissions as suburban homes.

And…

But high-density planning is not a safeguard against lawsuits citing environmental impacts. In May, Cottonwood resident Gary Catlin enlisted the support of the Sierra Club in a lawsuit accusing Tehama County of failing to take into account the effects of the areas, which could lead to increased development near his 5-acre Country Hills property.

From The Wall Street Journal, 2008, an op-ed by Joel Kotkin, a presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, “Jerry Brown’s War on California Suburbs.”

It always seemed strange that organized labor has solicited the support of the environmental left in pushing for passage of the undemocratic Employee Free Choice Act. (See earlier posts.) Why make common cause with groups that oppose the kind of human activities that keeps union members employed — construction, transportation, mining and manufacturing? Especially when history tells you the environmental groups will agree on a consensus, a compromise, or a modus vivendi on an issue and then a month later file a lawsuit in federal court. (Think Northwest timber harvests.

Perhaps the tactics themselves unite these groups. Developments in California suggest as much, as recounted in Walter Olson’s post at Point of Law, “California unions’ environmental extortion“:

Today’s Times:

As California moves to license dozens of huge solar power plants to meet the state’s renewable energy goals, some developers contend they are being pressured to sign agreements pledging to use union labor. 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.

“This does stress the limits of credibility to some extent,” the California energy commissioner, Jeffrey Byron, said at one contentious hearing, “when an attorney representing a labor union is so focused on the potential impact of a solar power plant on birds.”

It seems Bob Balgenorth, chairman of the labor group accused of exploiting the environmental laws this way, “has cultivated strong ties with conservation groups”. I wonder whether there’s a tie-in with the Sierra Club’s and NRDC’s endorsement of EFCA?

So jobs or the environmenta are not at issue, just the raw use of power to accrue more power.

Eventually, of course, one side will betray the other. It’s in their nature.

From The Los Angeles times, with link to the video, “Hollywood unions come together — for a change“:

As debate in Washington heats up over the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, unions representing actors, writers, directors and crew members collaborated with umbrella organization AFL-CIO to produce a video in support of the legislation, designed to lift roadblocks to unionization.

The three-minute online video features testimonials from 47 performers and actors, including F. Murray Abraham, actor-comedian Jerry Stiller and Amy Brenneman, star of the TV series “Private Practice.”

Then there’s new PR from left-wing religious groups, “Interfaith Justice Group To Congress: Employee Free Choice Act Is Consistent With Biblical Morality.” Don’t forget the rabbis, “Rabbis Tell Specter: Join Us in Supporting Employee Free Choice.”

And the Sierra Club and other environmentalists are joining in the hands across economic growth campaign: ”The Sierra Club is among many environmental groups to support the Employee Free Choice Act. At the closing ceremony, workers and religious and community leaders offered a blessing and called on Feinstein to support the Employee Free Choice Act.”

Good grief. Aren’t these the same people that used to be in the nuclear freeze movement? Guess once you’ve developed all those skills at organizing vigils, you hate to put them aside.

Candles and method acting notwithstanding, there’s still no getting around the goals sought by these activists and actors: The elimination of secret-ballot elections in the workplace so unions can force their organization (and union dues) on unwilling employees, as well as imposition of binding arbitration that would destroy the free choice of contract terms for employees and employers alike.

It’s a raw, naked power grab by organized labor hiding behind kumbayaism. Light a candle. Sing a song. Destroy a job.

The many infiltrators we placed at the Capitol Hill rally this afternoon report back that organized labor had a good turnout, especially given the chilly weather — 600, said one; maybe 1,000 said another.

Here’s the AFL-CIO inflationary account, “1.5 Million Sign on to Support Employee Free Choice; Thousands Rally on Hill”

We infer from lack of any reference that Rep. George Miller and Sen. Tom Harkin did NOT introduce the Employee Free Choice Act today. The stimulus legislation, passage of CHIPS-II, anti-executive compensation and Presidential schreinerei all take PR precedence.

Our favorite claim:

Allison Chin, president of the Sierra Club, said the Employee Free Choice Act could help protect the environment:

The right to organize will lead to protections for workers and for the environment. We stand with you to deflect attacks on the most basic of rights for workers.

And the blind to see…

UPDATE (4:05 p.m.): More on the bill introduction from Tapped, the blog of the lefty American Prospect:

Politically, it looks like both the House and Senate versions of the EFCA bill, which will not have substantially changed since the last attempt to pass it in 2007, will be introduced in the coming weeks, according to Senator Tom Harkin, who has been tasked by Senate Health Education and Labor Committee Chair Ted Kennedy with managing the bill, and Representative George Miller, the lead House sponsor. Walking to a Senate Democratic lunch with President Barack Obama, Harkin suggested the delay on introducing the legislation was related to Al Franken’s continuing legal battle over Minnesota’s senate election. The senator also expects the nomination of Hilda Solis for Secretary of Labor will clear the Senate before the Easter recess.

Easter recess starts April 6. That’s a long time away, a very long time for key Senator to be speculating about. Maybe he knows something…

The campaign for a new solar energy ballot measure in Los Angeles has raised more than $267,000, nearly two-thirds of it from groups affiliated with the union that represents Department of Water and Power employees, according to a report released Wednesday.

An International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local contributed $50,000 to support Measure B, a March ballot initiative to add 400 megawatts of solar panels throughout Los Angeles by 2014. The nation union, IBEW Education Committee, gave $75,000, the Times reports, and an IBEW astroturf group ponied up $45,000.

Critics say the unions are trying to force the city into a monopolistic arrangement that narrowly benefits their members but sticks it to Angelenos with higher electrical rates. But we were struck by this weird connection:

Backers of the solar plan say it will create good jobs and has support that extends beyond DWP employees to include groups such as the Coalition for Clean Air, the Sierra Club and the American Lung Assn

Right, sure, those reliable proponents of new electrical generation and transmission, the Sierra Club.

Organized labor is generally pretty good in promoting new energy projects, but in this case, they’re getting into bed with anti-energy zealots. The Sierra Club led the opposition to a solar energy project promoted by San Diego Gas & Electric because transmission lines offend their environmental sensitivities.

The Sierra Club filed a motion with the [California Public Utilities Commission] demanding that they require SDG&E to proceed with an EIR before any route is established. The Sierra Club stated that by determining the route in advance, the public and the CPUC would be conceding the need for the power link plan and avoiding the mandatory listing of alternative plans, including a “no-project” alternative that would compare the impacts to the environment if the Sunrise Powerlink plan was either approved or denied.

 “The alternatives discussed should focus on ways to avoid or substantially lessen the project’s significant environmental effects,” said Paul Blackburn of the San Diego Sierra Club.

Once an electrical-generation project moves beyond the theoretical stage into threatening to become reality, big-money green organizations like the Sierra Club go into action to prevent its completion. Why would the IBEW make common cause with a group that, history tells us, will eventually try to block the realistic steps needed for the project?

Government subsidies must be involved, but in the end, the IBEW is just hurting itself. Dumb.

(Hat tip: Jim Gray.)

From The Calgary Herald, “Pick for U. S. energy secretary eyes opportunity in clean coal“:

Emissions - Steven Chu, president-elect Barack Obama’s choice for energy secretary, said the United States has an “opportunity” to develop technologies that would burn coal with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

“I feel very strongly that this is not only an opportunity, it’s something the U.S., with its great technological leadership, should rise to the occasion to develop,” Chu, 60, said Tuesday at a hearing of the senate energy and natural resources committee, which is considering his nomination.

How disappointing for all the anti-energy activists to whom coal is the environment’s bete noire. Chu has told them to go to hoille.

Chu and by extension the Obama Administration’s endorsement of clean-coal comes just as big-money environmentalists are spending millions on an advertising campaign attacking the technology. The Sunday news-chat shows are full of the TV spots, which are clever enough — a fellow standing on an empty, windswept plain, saying triumphantly, “This is today’s clean-coal technology.” (Watch it here.)

At the Metro Center subway stations here in D.C., the coalition that promotes itself at This is Reality.org, has bought most of the wall display space and hung banners to sell the message that there’s no such thing as clean coal. Like the TV spots, it’s another effort at hip advertising — see, this Sasquatch (mermaid, space alien) is holding a piece of coal claiming it’s clean, and since Sasquatches don’t exist, clean-coal doesn’t exist.

The message strikes us as too complicated and ironic for an effective ad campaign on public policy. Worse: It’s stupid and anti-science. The argument is that because some technology does not currently exist, it will never exist, and therefore we should not use that source of energy now or embark on any R&D.

If you applied that attitude consistently, then we’d never have wind, solar, biofuels, nuclear power — or certaintly not competitively price power generation from those sources. We’d never make any progress, period. This Is Reality is selling Luddism as an answer to today’s energy and environmental challenges.

The editorial page editor of The D.C. Examiner, Mark Tapscott, wrote a column on the campaign by the groups — Alliance for Climate Protection, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters. Tapscott reminds us that coal represents the No. 1 source of power generation in the United States, identifies the amazing progress made in reducing coal emissions, and the prosperity and life-saving technology made possible by affordable production of electricity. From “Coal Lies From A Progressive Fable Factory“:

New technologies are on the horizon such as gasification and carbon-capture that promise to make coal burning even more environmentally friendly.

So strictly speaking, the “clean coal” technologies aren’t here yet. But then neither are the alternative energy supplies the environmentalists regularly cite as ready replacements for coal and other carbon-based fuels. And there are serious trade-offs with the alternatives that environmentalists don’t like to talk about.

In the end, whom are we to believe, a Nobel prize-winning scientist or an ironic Sasquatch?

There’s been much huffing on the activist left about “Midnight Regulations” being issued by the Bush Administration, that is, the supposedly last-minute surprises that the White House and agencies are springing on the public without adequate notice.

Groups like the American Association for Justice (trial lawyers), the Sierra Club (environmentalists), and ProPublica (activist, anti-business journalism) have all pounded the table against this circumvention of the regulatory and oversight process. But in most cases, these regulations have been in the works for many months if not years and have indeed followed standard practice, in line with OMB’s instructions to avoid the shortcuts and gaming that undermines the implementation of these rules.

What’s really going on here is an effort to delegitimatize the substance of the regulations, especially those that attempt to encourage energy production while maintaining public health and safety. These groups have all lost their arguments during the drafting and public comment period on the rules, so now they try a process attack against the outcome.

Why else haven’t we seen an outcry against President Bush’s announcement this week that is he is using his executive branch authority to declare national monuments in three areas of the Pacific Ocean - in total, the largest fully protected area in the world, 195,274 square miles worth? It’s an astonishingly far-reaching expansion of government control over vast regions, done not after a full policy debate in Congress but instead with a stroke of the president’s pen. Are any of the groups aggrieved over “midnight regulations” upset with this display of executive branch authority?

To its credit, at least OMB Watch acknowledges the President’s actions, trying to distinguish it from “midnight regulations” in a blog post, “Last-Minute Ocean Conservation from Bush“:

Bush’s conservation move comes not by agency regulations, but by powers granted to presidents under the Antiquities Act of 1906, according to the Post. Though the regulatory machine is shutting down, Bush has other ways of advancing his policies. Executive orders, proclamations, and the like — though easier for future presidents to undo — remain an option for Bush until his final minutes in office.

Well, then, shouldn’t OMB Watch and its allies among the anti-Bush-regulation crowd be as exercised about the new Marine Monuments as they are about the ”midnight regs?”

Sure they should be, but they’re not, which tells us it’s not the midnight that offends them, it’s Bush keeping the clock.