HUGE ECONOMIC INVESTMENTS AWAIT NODS FROM GOVERNOR

Some key decisions now rest on the desk of the man who acted, in the judgment of this writer, in a clearly unlawful and unconstitutional manner when he unionized your state government with a stroke of his executive-order pen. That would be Gov. Bob Holden.

The decisions either on the governor's desk or on their way there amount to a potential $1.35 billion in development and new investment for our state. Let's add them up:

* A $250 million, gas-fired power plant to be built in Cape Girardeau County by Kinder Morgan Power Co., a Houston-based pipeline giant.

* A $600 million cement plant to be built on the Jefferson-Ste. Genevieve County line by Holnam Inc., a Switzerland-based multinational company.

* A $500 million gas-fired plant proposed to be built in Montgomery County by Panda Energy, another giant of the power-generation industry.

Fundamental to the decisions confronting the governor is the question: What kind of state will Missouri be?

Building power plants is one way to avoid the dreadful fate of California. The Golden State has listened to the environmental extremists for more than a generation: Nuclear? Can't do that. Remember Chernobyl?

Never mind that that 1970s-era plant was a Soviet dinosaur, cutting corners and using Tin Lizzie technology never seen west of the Urals. Never mind that France and Japan generate far more of their power from nuclear than we do -- upwards of 60 percent to 80 percent of their needs. You can walk down the streets of certain French towns and see the looming cooling towers of the friendly local nuclear plant right in the middle of town.

Coal? We can't have that. Too dirty -- even with modern scrubbing technology. The United States may be the Saudi Arabia of coal, true. Far better to devastate some more poor towns in Southern Illinois or West Virginia than to allow those poor people to earn a living in the manner that generations of them always have. (The people aren't stupid: One result was that, faced with enviro-extremist Al Gore, West Virginia went Republican in an open presidential election last November for the first time since 1928.)

What about natural gas? Isn't that our cleanest-burning fuel? No, say the environmental extremists. Those nasty emissions.

The result is the bitter fruit of following such advice: Rolling blackouts, energy shortages, bankrupt utilities, skyrocketing energy bills.

Louisiana Congressman Billy Tauzin observes that there is something dreadfully wrong with the priorities of a nation that will send its young people to die in foreign wars to keep oil flowing but won't drill at home in a safe manner for available energy.

Again: What kind of state, Missouri? Will we go the California route?

This writer grew up, in the 1960s in a town one of whose largest employers was a cement plant in the days before the environmental awareness that now informs our decisions. As recently as my high-school days, there was, as often as not, a coating of fine dust on our cars when we ventured out of doors. We lived with it.

With the environmental cleanup that began 30 years ago, those days are long gone. And nearly all would agree it's for the better.

Still, the question looms: What kind of state will Missouri be in the 21st century?

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the chairman of Rust Communications and president pro tem of the Missouri Senate.