NRDC and Labor

NRDC's David Pettit works with community and labor groups to fight air pollution in southern California.

OE: Tell us a bit about the blue green alliance.

Pettit: It used to be said that environmentalists would save a threatened mosquito at the cost of a million jobs and that unions would pave over Yosemite if they could get paid. This was always a phony dichotomy. The Blue Green Alliance embraces a number of labor unions and environmental groups, including NRDC, who believe that the green economy can provide hundreds of thousands of good jobs. Weatherizing homes and installing solar panels are jobs that can't be outsourced offshore. On a different scale, California's clean energy economy has generated $6.5 billion in venture capital in the past three years.

OE: What are some examples of work that NRDC and labor groups have done together?

Pettit: NRDC is working with a coalition of community and labor groups at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to clean up the single biggest source of deadly diesel particulate pollution in Southern California. Together, we crafted the Ports Clean Air Action Plan, the most environmentally progressive port cleanup program in the world, and convinced both ports to adopt it. NRDC is now fighting in court to keep the trucking industry from weakening the ports' plans to clean up the fleet of 17,000 dirty, old diesel trucks that serve the ports. Several years ago, NRDC worked with community and labor groups near Los Angeles International Airport  to make sure that LAX's planned expansion was environmentally friendly and provided good jobs to local residents. NRDC also supported Los Angeles Measure B, a local initiative backed by many environmental and labor groups that would have encouraged the development of rooftop solar power in Los Angeles and provided for hundreds of good-paying installation and maintenance jobs. Unfortunately the proposal was narrowly defeated in March 2009.

OE: Are there projects where NRDC and its labor friends disagree?

Pettit: There are some projects where we have to agree to disagree with our friends in the labor movement.  An example would be the Orange County Toll Road, an environmentally destructive project which NRDC fought to stop but which the trade unions supported.  Another, similar situation is a very recent exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act that the California legislature gave to a football stadium project in Southern California. On the other hand, NRDC supports the construction of a far-reaching mass transit system in Los Angeles, which will provide not only construction jobs but operation and maintenance jobs too.  The fact that there are sometimes disagreements does not detract from our belief that we really can have it both ways:  we can clean up the environment while providing for important, good-paying jobs for Americans.