Earth Equity News

Obama Presses for Green Jobs but Reverses Himself on Petroleum Reserve and Offshore Drilling. By Tom Raum, AP, August 4, 2008. "Barack Obama put forward a broad energy plan Monday designed to end U.S. reliance on imported oil within 10 years and shore up his standing amid a tightening White House race and high anxiety over gas prices. Obama's new proposal, though, includes two significant reversals… He had steadfastly fought the idea of limited new offshore drilling and was against tapping the nation's emergency oil stockpile… Not only did Obama push for drawing from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, he also reiterated his changing position on offshore drilling -- first revealed last Friday -- suggesting that he could live with it if done in an environmentally sound way and as part of a bipartisan energy compromise. In a speech in Michigan, [Obama] also endorsed long-term work on hybrid cars and renewable energy sources. 'Breaking our oil addiction is one of the greatest challenges our generation will ever face,' the Illinois Democrat told a supportive audience as he embarked on a week to focus on energy issues. 'It will take nothing less than a complete transformation of our economy'... 'Like George Bush and Dick Cheney before him,' Obama said of [Sen. John McCain], 'he sees more drilling as the answer to all of our energy problems, and like them, he's found a receptive audience in the very same oil companies that have blocked our progress for so long. In fact, he raised more than one million dollars from big oil just last month.'"