Our New Man

"It will be the policy of my administration to reverse our dependence on foreign oil while building a new energy economy that will create millions of jobs."

...HOW MUCH BETTER CAN IT GET??...

He has specifics -- He's demanding of automakers that they raise fuel economy standards, asserting that:

"This will help us create incentives to develop new energy that will make us less dependent on the oil that endangers our security, our economy, and our planet."

Plus, the EPA has been ordered to reconsider California's request to mandate lower emissions.

"At a time of such great challenge for America, no single issue is as fundamental to our future as energy. America's dependence on oil is one of the most serious threats that our nation has faced.  It bankrolls dictators, pays for nuclear proliferation and funds both sides of our struggle against terrorism.  It puts the American people at the mercy of shifting gas prices, stifles innovation and sets back our ability to compete.  These urgent dangers to our national and economic security are compounded by the long term threat of climate change, which, if left unchecked, could result in violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines and irreversible catastrophe.  These are the facts."

"Embedded in American soil and the wind and the sun, we have the resources to change.  Our scientists, businesses and workers have the capacity to move us forward.  It falls on us to choose whether to risk the peril that comes with our current course, or to seize the promise of energy independence.  For the sake of our security, our economy and our planet, we must have the courage and commitment to change."

"We hold no illusion about the task that lies ahead.  I cannot promise a quick fix; no single technology or set of regulations will get the job done.  But we will commit ourselves to steady, focused, pragmatic pursuit of an America that is freed from our energy dependence and empowered by a new energy economy that puts millions of our citizens to work."

The proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that's before congress now would "put 460,000 Americans to work with clean energy investments and double the capacity to generate alternative energy over the next three years.  It will lay down 3,000 miles of transmission lines to deliver this energy to every corner of our country.  It will save taxpayers 2 billion dollars a year...it will save working families hundreds of dollars on their energy bills...This is the boost that our economy needs and the new beginning that our future demands."

As the president signed the executive orders, my eyes welled -- and I am not ashamed.  He's only a few days in.  He's obviously been busy.  And, selfishly, I felt that MY president had finally arrived.  Someone was cheering when Bush got elected and re-elected, and that's just fine.  Now I get to have a turn, and so do all the like-minded people I know who have been yearning so deeply for this.  

Can you imagine?  He tied national security to environmentalism!  He put issues that happen to matter to me at the forefront of his administration's priorities.  I HAVE NEVER WITNESSED THAT BEFORE.  It wasn't Afghanistan or Iraq or North Korea (of course I care about those countries too)...it was, most responsibly, AMERICA.  AMERICA, AMERICA!

I was looking at a coffee table book today full of the pictures and stories of the pioneers.  Now, there's a lot I disagree with about how the West was settled -- sometimes the fact that it was settled at all irks me.  But peering into the faces of those men and women in old tintypes (our ancestors, our precursors for better or worse), I saw the day's mood reflected.  Terra nova!  Moving forward into the unknown with the promise of labor and difficulty and being confronted with startling new things.  That's adventure.  We may be able to right some of the wrongs of the last century or two and steward the land consistently.  Build sustainability into the Constitution, if not through formal rewriting, then simply by understanding its necessity as a given.

That is one long transcription and ramble.  I just kept finding it necessary to include things.  If you haven't already seen it, you can view the full broadcast, made yesterday the 26th,  here, on MSNBC.  

--Nell