Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Red State. Blue State.  Through EcoDriving we can all be green states.

Hit the link and you will be greated by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (and Governor Bill Ritter) introducing the power of Eco-Driving for making a real difference when it comes to the nation’s gasoline use and, therefore, carbon footprint.

The average driving could seen a 15 percent reduction in fuel use through a few simple steps.

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Al

The VP rumors are running hot and heavy. Kaine? Bayh? Sibelius? Clark? Clinton? Biden? Every direction one looks, a different name.

Al

This choice will say something serious about Barack Obama’s commitment to taking action on the greatest challenge that this nation, that humanity might ever have faced.

Al

This choice matters. And you have a chance to affect this choice.

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John McCain spent part of this last Friday at the Aspen Institute speaking about energy issues, including a meeting with T. Boone Pickens. From an interview there

McCAIN: I have a long record of that support of alternate energy. … I’ve always been for all of those and I have not missed any crucial vote. But my citizens in Arizona know that when I’m running for the President of the United States I have to be out campaigning.

Simply put, Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!!!!!!!!!

John McCain has missed vote, after vote, after vote in the US Senate.

John McCain has been Absent WithOut Leave (AWOL) for critical vote after critical vote on energy issues.

John McCain: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

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A critical Republican campaign strategy is working when it comes to framing for the November election. Despite actual facts, media reporting increasingly reports that there is no difference of import between John McSame McCain and Barack Obama when it comes to the arenas of energy and Global Warming. Take David Kesterbaum’s NPR report this morning

If you are trying to figure out whom to vote for in the upcoming presidential race, the issue of climate change may not be much help. This is one area where both leading candidates for president do not have a lot to disagree about.

Shallow, misinformed, and misleading reporting is about the most polite way to describe Kestenbaum’s report which focuses solely on selected sound-bytes rather than the substance of the two candidates’ positions.

Sadly, shallow, misinformed, and misleading reporting is not limited to Kesterbaum. Take for example this Houston Chronicle article earlier this week entitled “Energy plans alterntive in nature, similar in goal … experts see little difference in two candidates’ overall strategies“. Starting with the fact that the article quotes only one “expert” (thus “experts”?), the plans and concepts the candidates have proposed are radically different.

These media reports indicate that a fundamental McCain strategy is working, the efforts to greenwash McCain into something that he, those that surround him, and those that fund him are not.   The desire is to create the impression of distance between McCain and Bush, while McBlurring McSame McCain‘s differences with Barack Obama.  As Rachel Maddow has put it, calling John McCain an environmentalist as part of the campaign strategy is to “run on someone else’s record“.   The more appropriate description might be ‘potentially not as disastrous as most in the Republican Party as part of McCain’s recycling of George Bush.’

Sadly, from NPR to the Houston Chronicle, this deceptive strategy is proving fruitful.

Before entering the ballot box, you have the right. No, actually, the responsibility to know candidates’ positions on the critical issues before us and before the US. And, a new tool has emerged for doing so on critical energy and environmental issues.

Candid Answers provides a path for voters (for citizens) to query quickly candidates on five critical issues:

1. Do you support or oppose mandatory limits to reduce global warming pollution 80% by 2050?
2. Do you support or oppose producing at least 20% of America’s electricity from clean power sources by 2020?
3. Do you support or oppose additional subsidies to build new nuclear power plants?
4. Do you support or oppose more federal funding for public transportation?
5. Do you support or oppose increasing fuel efficiency standards to at least 50 mpg by 2030?

These are issues about which all citizens should be informed

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For both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions (DNC/RNC), a bike sharing program will be made available to delegates, media and representatives. Humana is providing 1000 bikes in partnership with Bikes Belong, a biking advocacy coalition. While, sadly, the bikes will be available only from 7 am to 7 pm (perhaps to reduce drunken bike riding?), this will be an opportunity for politicians, staff, and others to learn about the value and strength of urban bike programs to provide (essentially) free bicycles for use within their urban area. These are having great success in Europe (such as in Paris.

For the conventions, pre-registration is recommended, but not required.

The New York Times published a strong editorial, Energy Fictions, that borders on fantasy itself. Reading (and rereading it) makes one wonder whether the NYTimes editorial board simply need new glasses as they seem not to understand some basic facts.

What are we do when the nation’s great “paper of record” misrepresents and misleads in its editorials as what is expected, day in and day out, from the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times.

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Republicans are lying to support drilling and too many in the right-wing sound machine are all too willing to act as an off-key chorus singing the praises of this Drillusion. Sadly, this outright deception is being met by confusion and, sadly, polling suggests that the Democratic Party’s seeming confusion is not convincing the public that the Republican drilling lies will not solve problems for anyone other than oil executives and Republican Party contribution coffers.

It is time for an answer, a serious answer, to be embraced by the Democratic Party as an entirety and the nation.

It is time to move from Drillusion to real solutions.

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At times, we might forget that there are a good number of very bright, extremely dedicated, and fundamental people working in Congress. Elected officials and staff. Our funding system that seems to drive member after member to be begging, tin in cup, for funds can make the entire process look open to purchase. The traditional media mania for ever lower quality reporting magnifies this, making foolish shallowness the norm. Reality is far from this and it is worthwhile at times to take a moment to consider that reality.

An e-mail came into me today that reminded me of this, a letter with perhaps the best single word I’ve seen to summarize Republican truthiness when it comes to energy issues but a letter with substance.

Drillusion

Thank you Representative Earl Blumenauer.

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Amid skyrocketing oil, gasoline, coal, and electricity (coming to a neighborhood near you) prices, 2008 offers Americans quite serious and stark choices between knowledgeable, impassioned, and thoughtful candidates when it comes to finding paths toward a prosperous 21st century economy, on the one side, and Fossil-Fool candidates focused on tightening our shackles to the ever-more costly (pollution, financial, otherwise) and archaic oil-coal based energy system.

Possum was an easy, albeit sentimental, choice for membership in the ranks of the Energy Smart Act Blue page. A fellow blogger, concerned about energy and environmental issues, who has dedicated himself to Crashing the Gate to bring more sensible policy-making, including on energy and global warming, to Washington, DC.

Join me after the fold for some indications as to why.

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