Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: New Hoffa with old deal

Friday, Sept. 7, 2001 | 4:42 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

WATCHING TEAMSTERS BOSS James Hoffa Jr., on Labor Day weekend's televised "Meet the Press," advocating the drilling for oil in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, made me chuckle. His justification to side with GOP House boss Tom DeLay of Texas, a well-known organized labor hater, and President George W. Bush wasn't what amused me. What was entertaining was the abuse of facts Hoffa used to justify a few new and short-term jobs the intrusion on "America's Serengeti" would create. I could hear the echo of his father's voice as he justified Teamster support for President Richard Nixon.

Hoffa's belief that all of the oil coming from ANWR would be for domestic consumption reminded me of a similar promise made 35 years ago when drilling was promoted in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay. This promise was built into the law and several years later it was quietly removed so Alaskan oil could be sold and shipped to our economic adversaries in Asia. What Congress can write into law it can, and often does, remove at a later date.

Hoffa's use of an 11-year-old report by the American Petroleum Institute painted a rosy, but false, picture of what the drilling would produce for American workers. That report overestimated the price for a barrel of oil in 2000; it tripled the estimated amount of oil that U.S. Geological Survey now believes lies beneath the surface of that area; and a 1994 Economic Policy Institute tells us that the API report grossly overestimated several times the number of new jobs the drilling would produce. These are but a few of the problems on the horizon over which Hoffa's sunny view of drilling in ANWR glows.

There's no doubt that union lobbyists helped push the law allowing drilling in ANWR through the House of Representatives. New York Observer columnist Joe Conason tells us why, when writing, "The payoff to the labor chiefs was a quiet guarantee, tucked away in the Bush bill, that the construction sites despoiling the Alaskan wilderness will favor organized labor. This amendment represented a major lapse from right-wing orthodoxy for conservatives like Mr. DeLay, who oppose the right to organize, the minimum wage and every other advance working people have achieved during the past century. Pragmatism outweighed principle on both sides of this deal." Oh yes, let's not forget this amendment can also be removed by a future Congress even before drilling begins.

Conason went on to write, "It all brings to mind a bitter quip that used to circulate among environmentalists: If the government ever decided to put up concentration camps, they joked, the unions would eagerly welcome the creation of so many new, well-paying jobs."

What makes people wonder about the trade-off for some jobs is the realization that clean air, water and outdoor recreation are also beneficial for America's working families. An experienced petroleum geologist, Rick Bass, writing in the High Country News, reminds us of our past efforts to minimize problems when seeking wealth. Bass writes, "Shall I remind you yet again of our country's worst myths -- call them lies, if you wish, or at best, mistakes -- that the forests will never vanish, and the tanker will never wreck? That the pipelines will never burst or even leak, and that our water wells will never become contaminated, and that if they do, the mining company will always, always have posted enough bond to cover the cost of the cleanup?"

Here at home, the vast majority of Nevadans fear the dumping of deadly nuke waste near our community. A few local construction union leaders continue to overlook these dangers and support the planned dump. Evidently they have forgotten that one deadly waste accident near Las Vegas would not only hurt the health of their own families but would threaten the jobs of thousands of Culinary Union workers. So much for the brotherhood of some American unions.