Making up for lost blogs: Oct. 26

The Election and the Envirnoment

In the light of the new election, I decided it would be both interesting and educational to look into President- elect Obama's upcoming environmental plans and policies...

The Obama and Biden Website summarizes the Obama‐Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:

• Provide short‐term relief to American families facing pain at the pump
• Help 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 save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela
combined
•Put 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
• Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by
2025
• Implement an ecpercent by 2050


Obama Supports:
1. Hastening the expansion of carbon-capture-and –storage and “clean coal” technology.
2. The carbon dioxide cap-and-trade sytem, similar the schemes in effect the European Union and the U.S. Northeast. Obama’s plans to cut the U.S.’s emissions of greenhouse so that by gases to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. His proposal states that some of the money auctioned by the cap-and-trade permits will “fund renewable energy alternatives and other infrastructure upgrades.
3. Expanding the use of renewable energy. By the end of his first term, Obama intends to have increased the use of non-renewable energy for electricity from the current 8% to 10%.
4. Investing in ‘green collar’ jobs to “replace industrial ‘blue collar’ jobs lost in recent decades as steel mills and factories closed.”
5. Obama supports offshore oil exploration in areas where it is already permitted.
6. Corn-based ethanol, something he has called a good “transition technology” away from fossil fuels.
7. Raising the federal fuel efficiency requirements (with the hope that U.S. automakers will consider plug-in hybrids and other alternative fuel vehicles.

Obama Opposes:
1. Offshore drilling in pristine areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Obama is Silent On:
1. Global deforestation crisis
2. Issues of animal extinction
3. Hazardous waste trafficking



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SOURCES:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=what-an-obama-win-means-for-the-env-2008-11-05