Opportunity Costs: Tangle with New Critic

Excerpts from the Paper

Opportunity Costs: Tangle with New Critic
Stephen Power’s article “EPA Tangles With New Critic: Labor” actually presents several categories of ‘opportunity costs’ for the coal industry, labor unions, the nation, the EPA, Democratic legislators and for the Obama Administration. An ‘opportunity cost’ is the value of the alternative (or closest alternative) to the use of a resource. The specific resource in question is coal, however there are also questions about jobs, environmental safety, labor unions and political backing in upcoming elections. All of these can be considered as resources and thus present ‘opportunity costs.’
Mercury levels are one example of an opportunity cost that is quantitatively described in the article. Others are...

.....rs from Missouri, Indiana and Louisiana wrote a letter to the EPA complaining that the regulations will "have a significant negative impact on our states' workers." Another cost opportunity is for those Democratic senators who must weigh the support of workers on this issue against the support of environmentalists, the president and others in their party. Senators often have to make deals or count on others in their party for support on projects they favor and to go against the President or their peers may represent still another cost opportunity.
Reference
Power, Stephen. (14 March 2011).EPA Tangles with New Critic: Labor. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704076804576180384094409812.html