Obama's clean energy standards slip in budget battle with Republicans

You have to pity Barack Obama. Even before the imminent threat of today's government shutdown, he looked like a man on the wrong end of a turkey shoot. Dick Cheney isn’t holding the smoking gun this time, but other Republicans have the president in their sights from all angles. Attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency, battles over the budget, breaking the unions are all attempts to stymie the Obama administration’s progress in any policy area.

So away from Capitol Hill, it must have come as a refreshing change to announce his Blueprint for Secure Energy Future to an appreciative audience with intelligent and open minds at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

As the leader of the free world, the president is the most shackled person in American politics. So he must have enjoyed the the freedom finally of saying the words climate, pollution and quickly in the same paragraph:

“We’ve got to discover and produce cleaner, renewable sources of energy that also produce less carbon pollution, which is threatening our climate. And we’ve got to do it quickly.”

Obama's Sputnik moment boosts clean energy in state of the union

The bed had barely grown cold from Hu Jintao's visit to Washington and Chicago, than Barack Obama has invoked China's enthusiasm for renewable energy technology in his state of the union address. After comparing Google and Facebook to other innovators such as the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison, he said:

"This is our generation’s Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race. In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people."