U.S. Chamber unveils NIMBY Watch Web site

Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce unveiled a NIMBY-Watch Web site called Project No Project. With case studies from more than 30 states, Project No Project chronicles how NIMBY (”not in my backyard”) activists “block energy projects by organizing local opposition, changing zoning laws, opposing permits, filing lawsuits, and bleeding projects dry of their financing.” Many of the projects blocked are not coal plants but alternative energy projects or infrastructure often touted as “green.” The site invites readers to provide examples from their own locales of NIMBY efforts to block or stall energy-related projects. Proponents of “green jobs” should be concerned as much as free-market and property-rights advocates, because ”stimulus” projects are vulnerable to the same NIMBY tactics that, for example, have immobilized the Cape Wind Project in Nantucket, Mass...Open Market