Politico reports on a very odd alliance:

Environmental groups are spending the congressional recess lobbying for two of the most controversial issues in Congress: the Employee Free Choice Act and a cap-and-trade system to regulate greenhouse gases.

The confluence of lightning-rod issues highlights an alliance between unions and environmental activists to promote green jobs as a solution to both declining union membership and global warming.

Many union members, whose dues are being used to fund this odd alliance, might be shocked to find out they were paying to hasten the demise of the industries employing them. The adverse effect in states like Ohio and Michigan, where union employees are already facing extreme economic hardship, has caused Democratic lawmakers from affected states to objected to and  stall cap-and-trade legislation.

It might be good for unions to make such a trade on the theory that they’ll make up the lost membership in industrial sectors by expanding elsewhere via card-check organizing. But for the affected workers in states where industries will now be hobbled by higher energy prices, this seems like a very bad deal. Nevertheless, it’s their dues that are going to pay for this.