Roundup of Obama's Six Hours In Canada

Canadian welcome mat

From a Toronto Star blogger:

Obama waved to the crowd again as he was leaving Parliament Hill. When everyone realized the motorcade was heading east, hundreds of people ran in that direction to see if they could see him again. The snow is ankle deep and rough terrain from thousands of footprints, so everyone was stumbling and giggling as they ran. Then when the motorcade disappeard around the corner, there was another stampede to Wellington St. People were cheering and waving as it crossed onto Elgin St. To head back to the airport. Then when the frenzy was over, all you could see were people checking their cameras to see if they had the shot they had been hoping for, still gasping for breath from the run through the snow and cold air.

White House live blogging.

Obama's press conference with Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper. Obama said he didn't press Canada for more troops in Afghanistan:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Obama needs a warmer coat:

Just like our pundits, Canada has theirs:
Obama makes Americans of all of us.
Enough with the Obamamania already.
See photos.

More photos
U.S. Canada Clean Air dialogue.
Story from CBC News Canada.

NYT story.

Washington Post story.

Obama signs the guest book

McCain's Missed All Renewable Energy Votes

Does anyone really think that McCain cares about renewable energy? McCain's energy plan is drill here drill now.
McCain missed 8 votes last year and one in July. Obama also missed the July vote.

Thomas Friedman: Sorry, but I can’t let that one go by. McCain knows why.

It was only five days earlier, on July 30, that the Senate was voting for the eighth time in the past year on a broad, vitally important bill — S. 3335 — that would have extended the investment tax credits for installing solar energy and the production tax credits for building wind turbines and other energy-efficiency systems.

Both the wind and solar industries depend on these credits — which expire in December — to scale their businesses and become competitive with coal, oil and natural gas. Unlike offshore drilling, these credits could have an immediate impact on America’s energy profile.

Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year — which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn’t leave his office to vote.

McCain's Oil Subsidy Costs by State

From the Center for American Progress:

If elected, John McCain would preserve and create $39 billion in federal help to the oil and gas companies over the next five years. These same dollars could be better spent investing in efficiency and alternative sources of energy that would save American families money, create thousands of new jobs, and help to power millions of homes with clean, renewable sources of energy.

This report shows the state-by-state costs to taxpayers both in lost tax revenue and in lost opportunities to invest in renewable energy and create new jobs.

Read the state by state costs.

Pelosi Open to Vote On Oil Drilling

A story at CNN on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was on Larry King, said Pelosi would be open to a vote on drilling if it was part of a larger energy package.

Seems to me Pelosi has been open to a vote on oil drilling all along. What she has opposed, from what I understood, was the way the republicans framed oil drilling -- insisting that oil drilling would lead to lower gas prices, which is a misnomer.

She also rejected republican's sudden interest in getting something done as a political stunt. Oil drilling, after all, is John McCain's platform. McCain is being influenced by the oil companies. Anyone who doesn't think that oil companies are behind the push for drilling is kidding themselves.

Just giving oil companies rights to drill without the context of a larger energy package is shortsighted. Why give the oil companies what they want without getting anything in return?

CNN: On Monday night, Pelosi said the vote would need to be part of a larger discussion that would include investing in renewable energy resources and releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Those options would help bring both immediate and long-lasting solutions to the energy crisis, she said.

In her interview with King, Pelosi talked about what the government and country needs to do to avert the energy crisis and quickly bring down gas prices. The following is an edited version of the interview:
.....

King: Would you vote yes on a package that includes drilling?

Pelosi: I would not. It depends how the drilling is put forth. But I don't -- that is not excluded, let me say it that way. It depends how that is proposed, if the safeguards are there. Now, mind you, 68 million acres -- 10 million more acres in Alaska where they can drill.

But if there's -- if we can get some great things, in terms of renewable energy resources: a renewable electricity standard, wind, solar, biofuels and the rest in that context, because if you make a decision only to go with the offshore drilling, you are increasing our dependence on fossil fuels, and you will never free yourself of that addiction unless you invest in the renewable energy resources that are good for the environment, cheaper for the consumer and will reverse global warming.

And the consumer is our first responsibility. The American taxpayer owns this oil offshore, by the way. Let me make this one final point. This oil is owned by the American taxpayers. The oil companies drill. We give them money to drill there. But we get very little in return.

So I think as we have this debate, which is a very healthy one to have and I welcome it; we have to review and realign the relationship between our oil, Big Oil's profits and what it means to the consumer and the taxpayer.

King: Do you expect -- do you suspect the oil companies of having a lot of clout here, influence over the Republicans?

Pelosi: Of course. Yes, they rule. And that's what we'll find out.

King: They rule?

Pelosi: When we have this vote, when we really define it and where the choice is clear to the American people -- I mean, do you know what -- Exxon Mobil, their last quarter, their profits were historic. Last year, they were historic. They outdid themselves this year already in this second quarter. And they insist that we pay them to drill. They need an incentive to drill in order to make over $11 billion in one quarter. And it just doesn't make sense. We should be using that money to invest in renewable resources, tax credit for wind and solar, etc. and invest in the technologies that will develop the battery and the rest, instead of giving Big Oil more profits.

New Poll: Drilling More Important Than Environment

A story in the Washington Post says Americans aren't interested in conservation and they could care less about the environment -- about half said this. Those surveyed (?) want to drill here and drill now, even in pristine wildlife regions. I guess they think it will make gas prices lower??? Oh, the irony. 

They also want "new sources of energy," which the newspaper defines as oil but makes no mention of other sources of energy, except for nuclear and Americans aren't warm to that. The paper also doesn't offer a link to the poll or the questions. I have to think this is one of those polls intended to influence readers and the sample was polluted, so to speak. There's way too much polling going on.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans now put a priority on "finding new sources of energy" over improving conservation -- a significant shift since 2001 -- and majorities support all of the five potential federal initiatives tested in a new ABC News poll.

There is overwhelming backing for stricter fuel efficiency standards, as large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike line up behind the idea. There is also widespread support across party lines for a more controversial proposal in the battle over energy policy: offshore oil drilling.

Overall, 63 percent want the federal government to lift its embargo on new drilling in U.S. coastal waters. Nearly eight in 10 Republicans and seven in 10 independents back the idea, as do just over half of Democrats in the poll conducted in partnership with Stanford University and Planet Green.

There is a new ad out by wecansolveit.org that fights the notion that drilling is the answer. It will run during the Olympics

Obama Energy Plan to Kick Oil Addiction

Here is what Obama announced today in Lansing. See video here. Here is the text of his speech.

Barack Obama's New Energy Plan For America - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Barack Obama's New Energy Plan For America

The highlights:

Providing short‐term relief to American families facing pain at the pump
Helping create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.

Within 10 years, saving more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.

Putting 1 million Plug‐In Hybrid cars – cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon – on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.

Ensuring 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.

Implementing an economy‐wide cap‐and‐trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

McCain's Drilling Talk Makes Big Oil Give

They like it so much that last month, they donated to his campaign.

Swamp: But it has caught on with the oil industry, whose executives contributed $1.1 million to McCain's presidential campaign last month, the Washington Post reports today on an independent watchdog group's study of the McCain campaign's fundraising.

Three quarters of McCain's oil haul followed the senior senator from Arizona's call for an end to the long-standing congressional moratorium on off-shore oil-drilling, the Post notes. And that $1.1 million take from Big Oil executives in June outstrips the industry's giving before that: $208,000 in May, $283,000 in April, $116,000 in March, by the Post's count.

Does anyone really believe that McCain wants drilling because Americans are suffering hardships? He hails from the Bush Cheney administration, the presidency of oil.

WaPo: McCain said the policy reversal came as a response to rising voter anger over soaring energy prices. At the time, about three-quarters of voters responding to a Washington Post-ABC News poll said prices at the pump were causing them financial hardship, the highest in surveys this decade.

Opening vast stretches of the country's coastline to oil exploration would help America eliminate its dependence on foreign oil, McCain said.

"We have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production," he said. "It is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions."

And some are saying McCain shaped his energy policy so he could get more money from the oil companies.

"The timing was significant," said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group that conducted the analysis of McCain's oil industry contributions. "This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money."

Brian Rogers, a McCain campaign spokesman, said he considers any suggestion that McCain weighed fundraising into his calculation on drilling policy "completely absurd." Rogers noted that oil and gas money in June still accounted for a very small fraction of the $48 million raised by the campaign and by the Republican National Committee through its Victory Fund.

"John McCain takes positions because he thinks it's the right thing to do for America," Rogers said. "He has a long track record of doing that. And he's often made decisions that hurt with his fundraising base."

Economists have already debunked offshore oil drilling as a solution to foreign oil dependence. Even California Arnold Schwarzenegger, a supporter of McCain, said McCain is blowing smoke. The only solution is a longterm one that is made up of wind, solar and other kinds of renewable energy. In the meantime, we have to cut back on our use of oil. We have to sacrifice. 

Why we won't have low gas prices ever again, no matter what John McCain tells you: This time it's different.

Earlier oil shocks have had obvious causes. In October 1973, OPEC raised prices and declared an oil embargo against the United States and other countries that had supported Israel in its war earlier that month against its Arab neighbors. The embargo ended in March 1974, but pricing power had shifted from the oil companies to the producing countries. In 1979, prices soared again after the Iranian Revolution curtailed output and consumers and oil companies went on a spree of panic buying.

Now, however, there is no one culprit and no single international crisis to blame. Instead, world demand has been increasing faster than supply, steadily squeezing oil markets.

This in turn has signaled to investors that prices are inevitably heading higher. Financial players, such as Wall Street banks and hedge funds, have bet just that, investing tens of billions of dollars in oil futures. Critics on Capitol Hill and elsewhere say this speculation has turbo-charged the market, helping lift prices even more.
Read the whole thing -- it's a great explainer, what we need more of.

Obama on Nuclear Power and Green Technology

Campaigning in Las Vegas, Obama said the problem with nuclear power is that we haven't found a way to store it safely. Dumping it in Yucca Mountain is not the solution.

"I'm not somebody who rules it off the table." But if there is no serious effort of storage of the materials then we need to look at things such as clean coal, he said. If the technology is not there for "clean coal," then we shouldn't be building coal plants.

a questioner asked if Obama could used "advanced coal" because many of the old technology coal companies are using the term "clean coal" even though they want to build traditional coal plants.

Obama would consider federal land in Nevada for construction of solar panels. Much of Nevada's land is owned by the federal government.

It occurs to me that Obama is specially qualified to be president at this time because the person at the helm needs to have the skills of an organizer. Obama needs to direct the nation in so many different areas and at the same time, he needs to tie all those areas together -- education, energy, and the like -- because it's all linked.

Lastly, he talked about government reforms.
Government needs to get out of the way when it's blocking progress. Government needs to be consumer friendly government at the post office, getting permits... Al Gore had some good ideas in terms of government makeover, he said.

It will be Reinventing Government 2.0 under the Obama administration, he said. He wants government to cut through the bureaucracy and the red tape as much as possible. I want to simplify our tax system.

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