November 6, 2008

Obama’s Presidency May Signal Good Times For Sustainability Industry

Bookmark and Share Email this story Print this post Add your comments

Barack Obama’s presidency may signal good times for the sustainability industry.

Gregory Wetstone of the American Wind Energy Association told the New York Times that he was eager to work with a president whose policies “for the first time will reflect a national commitment to renewable energy” like wind and solar power.

Some environmentalists were also optimistic about an Obama administration. Seth Kaplan of the Conservation Law Foundation told the New York Times that in addition to renewables development, he hoped Obama would implement a “tremendous ramp-up in energy efficiency,” as well as national regulation of greenhouse gases.

However, other environmentalists were not as pleased with Obama’s support for coal. Although the president-elect supports clean coal technology, some environmentalists say the technology may take years or decades to garner widespread use.

During Obama’s campaign, he made renewable energy a focus of his energy policy. These include: aiming to generate 25 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2025; setting cap-and-trade programs to reduce the nation’s GHG emissions 80 percent by 2050; investing $150 billion over the next ten years in cleantech; and putting 1 million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015.

The ethanol industry may also see a boost from an Obama administration, which has been more supportive than Senator John McCain of ethanol subsidies and expanded use of higher blends of ethanol (some blame McCain losing Iowa to his stance on ethanol subsidies).

However, the Daily Green reported that some analysts have been warning that Obama may scale-back plans, as the Obama administration faces mounting government debt and obligations related to the recent $700 billion bailout plans.

Bookmark and Share Email this story Print this post Add your comments

Advertisers

Join the Discussion

Reader Comments

Let’s hope that Obama scales back on subsidies for ethanol. Otherwise we’re going to be looking at annual subsidies in the tens of billions within a few years, not to mention persistently higher food prices.

Sign Kyoto

Get EL Daily in your inbox, subscribe to free newsletter

Recent Daily News [ see all ]

  • 02/09/2010
  • 02/08/2010
  • 02/05/2010

Recent Jobs

Post a Job
Jobs powered by Simply Hired

Comments and Discussions

John Bergdoll on Accidental to Purposeful Sustainability: Using What You Already Have to Grow Sustainability
"I was following the logic your article..."

Liz Amason on Clorox Comes Clean With Chemical Content on Web Site
"But look at their ingredients listings. For example, their regular liquid bleach..."

Rigidflexibility on Companies Going Green Should Ignore Green Consumer
"I was about to market a metal working fluid that is 98>% Soybean oil and..."

Stuart on Canadian Environment Minister Denounces Quebec Vehicle Emissions Regs
"Canadians have been waiting for the feds to act on climate change for..."

Steve Wolford on Sports Teams Embrace Sustainability
"Hello Environmental Leader, We just returned from the National Sport Forum in Baltimore. Team and..."

Mauibrad on Bipartisan Senatorial Effort Seeks Cap and Trade for non-CO2 Emissions
"Finally some enlightened ideas out of Congress!"

Cameron Green on Data Centers Can Apply for Energy Star Rating in June
"I did a blog post about this. Essentially PUE doesn’t give you very much..."