The Real Color Problem of President Obama

Oh, they call him a communist. They call him a Red. But the actual problem is that President Obama is too Green. Barack Obama is our first truly Green President.

This is the real reason the fossil industries whose profits are threatened by renewable energy go after him – and stir up emotional opposition groups to threaten him with outlandish attacks. Because he has already implemented or funded an extraordinary string of renewable energy initiatives.

He will likely be remembered as an FDR figure; the president who powered the nation with solar and wind.

Here’s just a few of the initiatives that will change our history.

1. In its first major coal plant decision, the Obama EPA stopped a new coal plant in South Dakota that had no pollution controls. Coal plants have routinely ignored Clean Air Act provisions. This move signaled to dozens of other coal plant proposals currently in permitting processes nationwide that they would now face a new level of federal scrutiny. Another one is threatened today.

2. Back In 2007, the Supreme Court had ruled against the Bush administration that carbon dioxide was a pollutant and therefor subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. Then the Bush EPA said it would need more than another year to see if  “endanger” was a “legal term of art” that must be studied. (Warming Law) President Obama ended this, initiating the process of regulating greenhouse gases for the first time in U.S. history.

3. He adopted the more stringent auto emissions standards of the California Waiver nationwide and let California (and the 13 states following it; comprising half the autos in the nation) retain the right to put in place higher fuel efficiency standards than Federal standards if these get overturned again in the future. This established the first ever national auto emissions standard specifically targeting greenhouse gases. In return for implementing these higher standards nationwide, he persuaded the auto industry to drop their lawsuits against California in July (GreenCarCongress) at least temporarily.

4. He directed the DOT to immediately implement the 2007 CAFE 35 mpg regulations that the Bush administration had still not moved on. (New York Times)

5. He appointed Steven Chu; a Nobel prizewinning scientist (who fully understands the promise of renewable energy) to run the DOE and then unleashed him. There has been a steady stream of renewable energy funding, from this new DOE. This post would be overwhelming if I enumerated every item, which fills my inbox daily. Here’s just some:
Govt Picks a Winner: Tesla Gets $465 Million
President Obama: $800 Million for Biofuels and Flex-Fuel Vehicles
President Obama Announces $2.4 Billion in Funding for Electric Vehicles
Solyndra Solar Wins First DOE Fnding
Obama Unveils Largest-Ever Investment in Advanced Batteries
Another Day, Another Humungous Renewable Energy Funding Announcement From DOE
Obama Announces US $467M in Stimulus Funding for Geothermal and Solar Energy Projects
Obama Commits $13 billion for High Speed Rail

6. He lit a fire under slowmoving FERC by appointing Jon Wellinghoff to run it. He wrote the Renewable Energy Standard law in Nevada. FERC has been a Balkanised, bureaucratic morass long dominated by oil and gas utility interests. By contrast, Wellinghoff is a big-picture proponent of the vehicle-to-grid synergy between renewable power and electric cars, who is determined to build a transmission superhighway from remote wind and solar sources to population areas. (Washington Post)

7. The Recovery Act itself also includes numerous tax credits for homeowners to install renewable energy and efficiency, like the 30% tax credits on solar panels.

For the powers that be there’s a lot of CHANGE to fear. That President Obama has moved so swiftly to move the nation to a clean future of renewable energy is a threat to the fossil industry.

It is no wonder that there is pushback.

Image from SpiritWaterBlood

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Tags: California waiver, communist, epa, ferc, fossil industries, Green FDR, President Obama, President Obama environmental record, Recovery Act, Red, renewable energy, Steven Chu

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times.    Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

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• http://www.mariahpower.com wind2power

  Wow, excellent recap of how much Obama and his team have done in less than a year!

  Thanks!

• htl

  great article keep it up

• Libby D'Orazion

  It isn't about what you call it. It is what it is.

  We need red, white, blue and green for our own health, safety and economy.

• Susan Kraemer

  Thanks, but it's hardly a full recap – there's so much renewable energy news to cover!

• http://blog.mapawatt.com Chris Kaiser

  Good overview of his accomplishes to date. As you can see, the President's greatest impacts are the people he puts in place and the tone he sets for his administration. The Bush administration's tone was "Don't disrupt the status quo" while the Obama administration's tone in regards to the environment truly is "Change".

  But it's not just what Washington does, it's what every individual who is inspired by Washington does.

  Continue to demand Change and help usher in a clean energy future!

• Chris

  It's good that Obama is tackling alternative energy, but it is ridiculous to think that all opposition to his policies is stirred up by big oil/coal/etc.

  It would be like arguing that criticism of Bush was stirred up by angry scientists who wanted more funding. Rational people criticize Obama for rational reasons as hard as that is to cope with for some people.

• Susan Kraemer

  A Chris There is evidence that the teabagger opposition is indeed funded by big oil. They have trillions to lose under legislation Obam is proposing.

  http://cleantechnica.com/2009/09/13/oil-funded-gr…

  Big Oil has a lot more money to stir up dissent with than angry scientists.

• Jack M

  This article is a joke. All ideologues are intolerable, including the author of this article. I fully support the President's environmental initiatives. I don't, however, support anything else he is doing to destroy this nation. I am not a Republican and I am not a Democrat. I choose issues to support and oppose, not a Party.

• Anthony

  How about more nuke plants? How about plasma arc energy generators? Something like that would solve the energy and waste management problems at the same time. But of course, plenty of people want us to simply do nothing, so we're forced back into the Stone Age.

• Cancerned

  This article is misleading. It is folly to trust the federal government to save us all with legislation. The Obama Administration holds just as many vested interests as any other. Take, for instance, the two billion dollars granted to build two "clean" coal power plants in Illinois, Obama's home state, which will use coal from that state. http://heatusa.com/blog/us-economics/clean-coal-b…

  There is no such thing as "clean" coal. The fact is that coal comes from coal mines, which destroy entire mountain ranges, disrupting the water cycle and poisoning the water supplies of the sprawling suburbs that are built on top of them after they've blown off the tops of mountain ranges and filled in the valleys.

  Transparent local government and economy is the only way to ensure our energy, food, and political security without giving up our rights to institutions. The Obama administration is not addressing the real problem, which is the disenfranchisement of individuals by treating them as powerless, meaningless cogs. Individuals and communities do not need, and have only everything to lose by trusting and relying on, the federal government to save them.