Some may be excited by the President's rhetoric, like Dave Roberts at Grist, who tweeted earlier today: "@drgrist: In a direct message to supporters, Obama gets behind a comprehensive energy/climate bill...Yes, CLIMATE."
But I wouldn't break out the champagne yet. In the above video, President Obama essentially regurgitated his message from his Oval Office address last week: the time for a clean energy future is now. He just left out the part about how we get there. Cap-and-trade? Subsidies for clean tech? Transportation policy? Technology policy? Education policy? People usually seem to think that a "comprehensive" energy policy must by definition embrace all forms of currently available energy, but what it should mean is a complete package of clean energy policies, one that has the potential to decarbonize the economy and create clean, cheap, renewable and abundant energy for the future. Such a mixture of policies will require massive investment in infrastructure, technological R&D and deployment, transportation and commerce reform, and pollution controls to name just a few.
In a nervous throwback to his early behavior during the health care debate last year, President Obama has yet to endorse (or even mention) his preferred policies for achieving his goal of a clean energy future. For now, he has the Joe Barton fiasco to distract the public into believing that Democrats have a better plan than Republicans; he'll have to act fast if he wants to put together a decent bill.
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