From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Under the bleach-bright Las Vegas summer sun, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Tuesday checked out the solar panels that shade cars in the parking lot of the Springs Preserve while powering the facility. "What we are seeing here ... is that the green, renewable energy economy is not some far-off, pie-in-the-sky future," Obama said in a speech at the local nature attraction. "It is now. It's creating jobs now. It is providing cheap alternatives to $140-a-barrel oil now. And it can create millions of additional jobs, entire industries, if we act now." In his first visit to Nevada since becoming the Democrats' presumptive nominee, Obama visited Las Vegas to put forward his energy plan Tuesday morning. The energy issue has become the focal point of the candidates' recent sparring as it hits Americans in the pocketbook in the form of skyrocketing gasoline prices. Obama proposed long-term investments in renewable energy as the solution and said "green" jobs like those at the Springs Preserve could provide work to locals suffering from the construction slowdown. He criticized Republican opponent John McCain's proposals as politically oriented ploys that wouldn't really address the problem. ... Obama was also critical of McCain's proposals for a summer holiday from the federal gasoline tax and allowing offshore oil drilling. He noted that McCain had admitted that drilling off America's coasts would have only a "psychological impact" in the immediate term. "In case you were wondering, in Washington-speak, what that means is, 'It polls well,'" Obama said. "It's an example of how Washington tries to convince you that they've done something to make your life better when they really didn't." ... "These are not serious energy policies," Obama said. "I wish we could wave a magic wand and make gas prices go down, but we can't." In the near term, Obama proposed a second round of stimulus checks to families and a tax cut for workers to help people deal with rising costs. To help pay for it, he called for a tax on oil companies' profits and closing the "Enron loophole" that allows speculators to drive up oil prices. Over 10 years, Obama said he would devote $150 billion to alternative energy sources, which he said would create "up to five million new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced."
From the New York Times:
Mr. Obama illustrated the gap between the candidates by giving a speech at a water plant in Las Vegas that laid heavy emphasis on $150 billion worth of alternative energy, including wind and solar power and hoped-for clean coal technology (Mr. Obama acknowledged, in response to a question, that he was not ruling out nuclear power, but he strongly suggested it was a distinctly lower priority). He asserted that these investments in technology would yield five million new jobs. He also proposed to charge oil companies an undefined fee for every acre that they lease but fail to drill on. Oil companies now lease but are not drilling on about 68 million acres, according to the Obama campaign. “If that compels them to drill, we’ll get more oil,” Mr. Obama said. “If it doesn’t, the fees will go toward more investment in renewable sources of energy.” The goal, Mr. Obama said, would be to catch and replicate the success of the world leaders in this field. “Germany, a country as cloudy as the Pacific Northwest, is now a world leader in the solar power industry and the quarter-million new jobs it has created,” Mr. Obama said. “To truly harness its potential, we urgently need real leadership from Washington — leadership that has been missing for decades.”
From the Las Vegas Sun:
The attention being paid to energy in Las Vegas this week underscores the importance of Nevada as a key battleground state in November. McCain is set to deliver a speech on energy today at UNLV. The state boasts enormous renewable energy potential, a fact not lost on Obama as he sought to use the setting (the Springs Preserve generates 70 percent of its power from solar panels) and the audience (peppered with workers from government agencies, unions and contractors all engaged in the energy industry) as a national example of a green economy. ... Investing in solar, wind and geothermal energy could produce more than 80,000 new jobs in Nevada by 2025, he said. In the short term, however, Obama offered his prescription for “real relief”: issuing a second round of economic stimulus checks, taxing the record profits of oil companies, awarding a $1,000 tax cut to most workers and closing the “Enron loophole” that would mean tighter regulation of oil speculators. In addition to promising to raise fuel economy standards for automobiles, Obama has pledged to invest $150 billion over the next decade in renewable energy research and development. On Tuesday he derided McCain’s proposals as little more than political posturing, particularly his pledge to offer a $300 million prize to anyone who develops a car battery that would “leapfrog” hybrid or electric power. “When John F. Kennedy decided that we were going to go put a man on the moon, he didn’t put a bounty out for some rocket scientist to win,” Obama said. “He put the full resources of the United States government behind the project and called on the ingenuity and innovation of the American people, not just in the private sector but also in the public sector.”
From USA Today:
Obama's visit [to Last Vegas] is part of a strategy to score upset victories in the traditionally Republican but independent-minded region that lies between California and the Rocky Mountains. "The winning-the-West strategy," as Danny Thompson, head of the Nevada AFL-CIO, called it, could help Obama win overall even if he falls short in some of the industrial battleground states. ... Together with Colorado, [Nevada and New Mexico] represent a combined 19 electoral votes, just one fewer than Ohio, the state that decided the 2004 presidential election. President Bush won all three Western states that year, but by close margins. Since then, Democrats have scored gains in gubernatorial, congressional and state legislative races. "These states are becoming more and more Democratic," says Joel Kotkin, a California-based scholar who studies the nation's demographic trends. ... Obama finishes up a two-week campaign tour focused on the economy in Pittsburgh on Thursday. On Friday, he heads to New Hampshire for his first joint campaign appearance with Clinton.
From Politico:
Winning the White House won’t be [Obama's] only goal, deputy campaign manager Hildebrand told Politico: In an unusual move, Obama’s campaign will also devote some resources to states it’s unlikely to win, with the goal of influencing specific local contests in places like Texas and Wyoming. ... “If we can register more Democrats, if we can increase the Democratic performance and turnout, maybe we can pick up a congressional seat,” Hildebrand said. Hildebrand’s plans underscore the unusual scope and ambition of Obama’s campaign, which can relatively cheaply extend its massive volunteer and technological resources into states which won’t necessarily produce electoral votes. In Texas, for instance, Obama’s three dozen offices were overrun with volunteers during the primary; the campaign’s challenge is, in part, to find something useful to do with all that free labor. But, while Hildebrand said Obama is unlikely to pay for television advertising outside a core of about 15 states the candidate thinks he can win, he will spend some money on staff. Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, reportedly told donors in Houston that he would send 15 staffers to Texas, and the campaign has committed to having some staff on the ground in all 50 states. ... But if Obama wins, he may have paved the path to a powerful Democratic majority. Obama has also sent out fundraising emails in the last week on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. A “new President alone isn't enough,” Obama wrote in a message sent to the DSCC’s email list. “I've served long enough in the U.S. Senate to know that Washington must change, and I also know that big changes don't happen without big Senate majorities - and right now, Democrats occupy only 49 seats.” “This November, we have a chance to create a Democratic Senate majority like we haven't seen in decades - but it won't happen on its own,” he wrote.
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