How can Barack Obama best pay for major new initiatives? By making the switch to clean energy and efficiency the driver of economic recovery. Clean energy, uniquely, starts paying for itself almost immediately. Anything we do to lower demand for imported oil, for example, drives down the price and bolsters the economy right away. Or, if the federal government loans money for energy retrofits to cities and states that might be facing bankruptcy next year, the money starts flowing back almost as soon as it is spent.
For me, the most exciting moment in last night's Presidential debate was when Obama showed that he gets this. When asked in what order he would undertake his major reforms, he put clean energy as priority #1. This is huge. It means that a green economy will be the driver of America's economic recovery if Obama wins -- and the focus group and polling results from last night suggest that the voters embrace this vision.
I watched this tipping point in Dallas with T. Boone Pickens -- Boone really wanted the two candidates to offer a more concrete energy plan than either of them did. I too would have preferred that Obama talk about how he will spend the $150 billion he has committed to clean energy investments so that the voters could get a more grounded vision of what the green energy economy would look and feel like -- in the way that Pickens has done with his plan. But at the end of the day, that's a communications quibble, not a policy flaw.
Although McCain started out talking about energy independence, he never got beyond nuclear power and offshore oil drilling, neither of which can make a meaningful difference in either our economy or our dependence on imported oil, and he repeatedly misstated such fundamental facts as how fast nukes and drill rigs could make a difference.
Last night made it clear: Obama's plan to invest in a green economy is the key to lifting America out of the hole that eight years of the Bush administration has dug for us.
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