The union that represents 8,700 L.A. Department of Water & Power workers is at odds with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa over the carbon surcharge drama going down between the City Council and Board of Water & Power Commission. Despite warnings, the Board approved a higher electric rate than recommended by the Council, which in turn vetoed it. That meant the needed rate increase to address bankruptcy concerns and renewable energy expansion can't happen for another three months. Brian D'Arcy, the head of the power-weidling International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, told the Villaraigosa that the Board should have supported the plan. A LADWP top official says the agency is now "significant jeopardy." more ›

David Zahniser at the LA Times puts a man who once would have preferred to be out of the spotlight into it with a nice profile of LADWP union boss Brian D'Arcy. He was behind Measure B, the failed solar power initiative on the March 3rd ballot, but he's still pushing the issue, trying to get the same plan--obtaining 400 megawatts of energy through solar panels placed all over the city--approved by the DWP commission while criticizing the department's other controversial plan to get solar power in the Mojave Desert and geothermal energy in the Salton Sea. He also thinks Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to reach 20% of renewable energy by 2010 is vert unrealistic. "'Environmental leadership' isn't meeting some artificial deadline by any means necessary," he said. "Environmental leadership is actually creating economic development while cleaning the air where you live, putting people to work and linking the environment to it. That's not really what's going on, if you ask me." more ›