Paris Hilton Drinks McCain's Milkshake

I think Chris Bowers is absolutely right - Paris Hilton's response to John McCain's celebrity ad has turned the tide of this race to a certain extent. Actually it occurred at a confluence of events: Obama calling McCain and his minions "proud to be ignorant" about car maintenance and fuel efficiency; Obama running a response ad to McCain's O.M. Origina Maverick (ya hear?) ad:



And then Paris pops up with a piece of video offering an objectively more substantive energy plan than McCain ever has. As Bowers says:

Hilton's response is now the top story on Google News, and apparently the McCain campaign is receiving so many media requests about it, that they had to post a from response on their website. They have gotten into a spat with Paris Hilton, which there is basically no way to win. Hilton has nothing to lose, and the back and forth just highlights the frivolic idiocy of McCain's recent attacks.

She's also squeezed him to an extent. Hilton basically endorsed a compromise proposal (I can't believe I wrote that sentence) of limited drilling as a bridge to a green energy future. That's not true; the meager take from coastal drilling is not nearly enough to build that bridge. But in the political context, both candidates are actually agreeing with this, as it's laid out in the bipartisan "Gang of Ten" plan on energy in the Senate. It's a true compromise, and it includes eliminating tax breaks for oil companies and funneling that money into alternative energy research. That central plank of the Democratic Party agenda (it was part of 6 for '06) polls extremely well, in the 70% range. But McCain has already gone on the record against the Gang of 10 compromise:

A spokesman for Sen. McCain said that while he "applauds the bipartisan effort," he wouldn't support the proposal because "he cannot and will not support legislation that raises taxes."

Which opens up a huge gap for Obama to exploit, when everybody figures out that making oil companies rich(er) is McCain's only objective.

What's more, Obama's mockery on the tire gauge nonsense has forced McCain up against a wall on that score:

Predictably, Obama hit back calling McCain’s mockery “ignorant,” arguing his plans were being misrepresented and saying that experts backed his call over tire pressure. Equally predictably, McCain’s camp hit back.

The surprise came during a telephone town hall meeting McCain held on Tuesday with voters in Pennsylvania.

“Obama said a couple of days ago says we all should inflate our tires. I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it,” McCain said.

The dispute now rests on a lie that the tire pressure tip is Obama's entire energy plan, which has been dismissed as foolishness in just the right way ("it's like these guys are proud to be ignorant.")

Finally, there's an extremely damaging A1 story in the Washington Post this morning that is the result of Obama's recent ads mentioning the $2 million McCain has collected from the oil companies since his change of heart on drilling. There's a throughline between the focus on lobbyists and oil companies and bundlers and donations and this story:

The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Rite Aid Pharmacy No. 5727, the 30-something owners of the Twilight Hookah Lounge in Fullerton.

But the man who gathered checks from them is no stranger to McCain -- he shuttled the Republican on his private plane and held a fundraising event for the candidate at his house in Delray Beach, Fla.

Harry Sargeant III, a former naval officer and the owner of an oil-trading company that recently inked defense contracts potentially worth more than $1 billion, is the archetype of a modern presidential money man. The law forbids high-level supporters from writing huge checks, but with help from friends in the Middle East and the former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit -- who now serves as a consultant to his company -- Sargeant has raised more than $100,000 for three presidential candidates from a collection of ordinary people, several of whom professed little interest in the outcome of the election [...]

Earlier this week, McCain drew questions about more than $60,000 in donations that were made this year to the Republican National Committee and his campaign by an office manager with the Hess oil company and her husband, an Amtrak track foreman. In that case, the couple said they used their own money.

Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant's network live in modest homes in Southern California's Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March.

Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant persuaded them to give away so much money.

There's at the very least the impression of straw donations here, an appearance of impropriety. I know that McCain is not in control of his own campaign, but surely all the connections to Big Oil and shady lobbyists and curious donations ought to take its toll (though I think the media will be consumed with Paris today).

The tenor of this race, aided by events, has changed. McCain is on the defensive.

Media Plays Referee! Exclusive!

TIME Magazine actually goes ahead and tells the inconvenient truth.

How out of touch is Barack Obama? He's so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point; Rush Limbaugh is having a field day; and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled "Barack Obama's Energy Plan" to Washington reporters.

But who's really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

It's a little stunning to see that in print. Calling out Republicans on their cheap and willfully stupid ploy? However did this happen?

Now, the second half of this is recognizing that this actually speaks to the inadequacy of drilling as much as the importance of proper car maintenance. Nancy Pelosi is actually doing something kind of smart - taking all the heat for blocking a vote on drilling while telling members of her party in tough elections to run against her. She knows that she'll be able to get a better deal in the next Congress if the Democrats can manage to win more seats. I'm not averse to this strategy. But it's really only a hop and a skip from a message that conservation works (which is the focus of the well-written TIME article) and a message that drilling for more meager supplies doesn't. As Al Gore has said, it's like a junkie looking for one last fix.

I think progressive environmental groups are right to call out Sen. Obama for backtracking on drilling. They're living up to their half of the Overton Window. I hope they also recognize the laudatory elements of the plan, including a focus on conservation, and these other innovative ideas:

In this energy plan, Obama recognizes that 837,000 troops have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As President, Barack Obama will ensure that more of our veterans can enter the new energy economy. He will create a new “Green Vet Initiative” that will have two missions: first it will offer counseling and job placement to help veterans gain the skills to enter this rapidly growing field; second, it will work with industry partners to create career pathways and educational programs.

Sent to fight a war on terror, many vets now know -- or will have to admit it soon enough -- that they ended up fighting an oil war instead; and there's a great danger lurking -- that they will feel used and sidelined after having served the nation at the risk of their lives. Embracing this fighting force and turning them toward the battle for a new global energy economy is simultaneously uplifting, pragmatic and healing.

Similarly, Obama recognizes the debt the nation owes to its auto industry, which for a century provided the backbone of American prosperity. It could not have been an accident that he chose to deliver his energy plan in Michigan, where he offered a vision of a bold future, way beyond what any US auto company CEO has ever dared to imagine: an industry revitalized by the manufacture of plug-in hybrid cars that get 150 mpg.

Obama will also provide $4 billion retooling tax credits and loan guarantees for domestic auto plants and parts manufacturers, so that the new fuel‐efficient cars can be built in the U.S. by American workers rather than overseas. This measure will strengthen the U.S. manufacturing sector and help ensure that American workers will build the high‐demand cars of the future.

At the heart of the plan is a target to put 1 million of these vehicles on the road by 2015, with the federal government a primary guaranteed customer. Nobody until now has floated a plan for the rescue of Detroit that makes so much sense, aligning the business success of the industry with both domestic job creation and national energy security.

I feel like I understand the "re-tooling" element of the auto industry rescue a lot better. Bailing them out is one thing - offering them free money to build plug-in hybrids is quite another.

I do wish he'd call out drilling as a gimmick - but the full-court press from the right has made that very difficult, because nobody got in front of this thing beforehand. Pelosi is being sharp by holding off the hordes until the next Congress, and Obama's plan does at least have a lot of commendable facets. The question is whether this new consensus on energy will be destroyed by the chip-chip-chip away of "Drill Now" Republicans who actually have a foothold due to the depressing cave from the Presidential nominee.

Tire Pressure - Snicker, Snicker

Well, this is pretty common. A Democratic Presidential candidate makes a comment and the right intentionally distorts it to make the candidate look foolish. Then they use their supplicants in the media to pile on the mockery.

In this case, the issue is tire pressure. A lot of time this stuff comes from surrogates, but here it's coming right from the campaign itself.

Meanwhile, the McCain team uses Obama’s comments as a fundraising tool.

E-mail from topper Davis to supporters: “I’m asking for your help in putting Senator Obama’s ‘tire gauge’ energy policy to the test. With an immediate donation of $25 or more, we will send you an ‘Obama Energy Plan’ tire pressure gauge.”

Earlier: The RNC says it will deliver gauges reading “Obama’s energy plan” to Washington newsrooms.

Steve Benen has a good roundup of the very coordinated silliness.

There's a sleight-of-hand going on here. Nobody can deny that proper car care is useful to improving efficiency. It's just the facts. Bush's Department of Energy promotes it, NASCAR promotes it as both an efficiency and a safety issue, and Republican governors promote it. It's an incontrovertible fact.

In fact, to make Obama's point, proper tire pressure actually would do more to lower individual gas prices than offshore drilling. This of course says more about drilling, and its worthlessness as a policy, than tire pressure.

Obama was observing that coastal drilling would save us so little oil and so little money even twenty years from now, that you can actually save more money immediately by doing "simple things" such as keeping your tires properly inflated.

Where did he get that crazy idea? From George Bush's Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency. (hat tip: Get Energy Smart! Now!)

Their joint site fueleconomy.gov is loaded with fuel-saving, money-saving tips. Keep your tires properly inflated, for example, and you can save up to 12 cents a gallon.

Compare that immediate savings from that single tip, with what coastal and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling combined would get you two decades from now: 6 cents a gallon.

And that's being generous, because Bush's Energy Department says we can't expect any impact on prices from coastal drilling until the year 2030.

In their knee-jerk mockery, conservatives are flying closer to the truth then they intend to.

Obama never said that tire maintenance was his entire energy policy - this is the intentional distortion fueling the catty mockery here. In fact, what he was saying, which could be made very catty, is that offshore drilling is such a loser that even filling your tires properly has a better chance of saving people money.

It's amazing what you can get away with when you decide to be willfully dishonest - and when you have a media which has no problem backing you up on it. Benen makes a solid point.

Consider a counter-example. McCain was talking about skin cancer the other day.

McCain emphasized that skin cancer is preventable, and implored Americans to wear sunscreen, especially over the summer. What’s wrong with this advice? Not a thing. It’s a smart, sensible thing to say.

But imagine if Obama and his surrogates said the entirety of McCain’s healthcare policy is sunscreen application. McCain doesn’t really care about cancer, they could argue, he just wants everyone to run out at get some SPF 30. Those vying to be Obama’s running mate started holding up bottles of Coppertone during their speeches, saying things like, “We want you to wear sunscreen, you know, it will very mildly improve your chances of not getting sick. But wearing sunscreen is not a healthcare policy for the United States of America.”

This, of course, would be insane. And yet, that’s pretty much what’s become of Republican campaign rhetoric of late.

The thing is, for the currently uninsured, sunscreen IS McCain's entire health care policy.

Some are speculating that Obama is offering a dogwhistle to working class NASCAR fans who tinker with their cars. And that may be. But clearly, the right is trying to bully Obama and the Democrats by just dishonestly suggesting that their entire energy policy rests on a tire gauge. But of course, the entire Republican energy policy rests on an offshore oil rig which will take a minimum of 10 years to bear fruit.

Why do Republicans want to impose government solutions instead of valuing personal responsibility for car care? Why do they hate individual initiative so much? Why do they want Big Government and Big Oil (in their case, the same thing) to take care of all their problems?

Schwarzenegger, Brown Finally Sue EPA Over Tailpipe Emissions Waiver

It was scheduled to happen the week of the SoCal wildfires, but events intervened. Now, California is poised to sue the federal government over the EPA's failure to grant a waiver to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Schwarzenegger and Brown plan to file a lawsuit asking a federal court to order the Bush administration to decide whether to approve California's landmark law requiring automakers to gradually reduce tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.

“California has a long and proud history of leadership in reducing pollution and fighting for clean air for our residents,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement yesterday. “And we are upholding that tradition by filing a lawsuit against the federal government that takes a big step forward in the battle against global warming.”

Under federal law, California must receive an EPA waiver to implement emissions standards tougher than federal levels.

But even if they prevail in court, California leaders are pessimistic that they will secure the waiver from the Bush administration, which has been slow to acknowledge warnings that human-caused global warming is a serious threat to the planet.

“Realistically, we think the chances are slim,” said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board. “We've made the case on the merits. We're right on the law. Somehow or the other politics will intervene. We just don't know where or how.”

The strategy here has been to slow-walk the decision to avoid the negative consequences of disallowing broadly popular legislation. It should be noted that the EPA has NEVER in its history failed to grant a waiver of this kind for tighter air pollution control laws. There's not even any standing for denying the waiver under the Clean Air Act, which only should occur if the regulations are not "technologically feasible." Considering that people are making 150mpg conversions in their garages, that's just patently absurd. Automakers in this country are killing themselves slowly by refusing to adapt to the needs and desires of consumers. If they persist, states should be allowed to recognize the impact on their own air quality and demand a shift.

This is going to be a long fight, but eventually, we will get this law.

A Breakthrough on Energy

Early in the day it looked like the Democrats' energy package in the Senate was on the rocks. Republicans blocked the centerpiece of the proposal, removing $32 billion dollars in tax breaks and incentives for oil companies and funneling that money into alternative energy research. So the GOP maintained corporate welfare at the expense of working to save the planet. Good times.

However, by the end of the day, a compromise agreement had been reached that is actually fairly solid.

The Senate passed an energy bill late Thursday that includes an increase in automobile fuel economy, new laws against energy price-gouging and a requirement for huge increases in the production of ethanol.

In an eleventh-hour compromise fashioned after two days of closed-door meetings, an agreement was reached to increase average fuel economy by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks by 2020.

This overcame a watered-down proposal from Michigan's Carl Levin, and is a significant step. As Dianne Feinstein pointed out,

"It closes the SUV loophole," declared Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., referring to current requirements that allow much less stringent fuel efficiency standards for SUVs and pickup trucks than for cars. "This is a victory for the American public."

Industry should have closed that loophole years ago, it would have enabled them to sell more cars, but government has a vested interest in planetary survival as well as the survival of the domestic auto industry, and if the carmakers won't help themselves they must be dragged into the 21st century.

This bill could obviously be better, but getting it through the Senate with what amounts to a veto-proof majority (it got 65 votes without Sen. Johnson and I believe Boxer, so that's 67) is major news. The House may be tougher, especially considering John "I loves me some gas guzzlers" Dingell is Chairman of the relevant committee. Apparently Dingell is trying to punt on the CAFE standards issue, the most important part of the bill. Call your Representatives; we cannot let this happen.

Institutionally Incapable of Getting It

Um, Ford? GM? Chrysler, or whatever you're calling yourself nowadays? Politics should not have to force you to accept new mileage standards. The MARKETPLACE should.

You're getting your clocks cleaned by Toyota and Honda and other companies making fuel-efficient vehicles, and that's not likely to change if you continue to resist giving people what they want. Everyone knows you have the technology to do it, and it would not cause much of an upheaval in your business arrangement. You haven't changed CAFE standards since 1983, and ever since then, you've lost market share. Coincidence?

I want to see the domestic auto industry survive, but its executives are so clueless about the world in the 21st century, it'd almost be better for them to dissolve and let companies that understand the marketplace take over.

(As a side note, it is good news that even fuel economy foes like Carl Levin and John Dingell are admitting that the political climate has changed and there will be increases this year.)

UPDATE: Apparently Levin's amendment may not even pass. Call Webb and Mikulski if you want to drag the automakers kicking and screaming into the new millennium by mandating 35mpg by 2020 (I would also like to see a change in how that mpg number is measured - my car listed at 35mpg and it rarely gets so much as 30).

California Taking On The EPA

Not that I think Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Democrat or anything, but he, along with the full force of the statewide elected leadership, is pushing the EPA hard to allow the state's greenhouse gas emission controls on vehicles to go forward. The Supreme Court has already ruled that the EPA can regulate greenhouse gas emissions, yet the EPA is dragging its feet on giving permission to California and the other states lined up behind us. Attorney General Jerry Brown was impassioned on this issue when meeting with regulators in Washington this week.

"This is more important than any issue that EPA's going to have to face," California Attorney General Jerry Brown told regulators who will recommend whether to give California the waiver it needs to implement its emissions law.

Brown asked the hearing panel to take a message to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

"We want him to speak truth to power," said Brown. "There is a tremendous influence of the oil industry. We know (Vice President) Cheney and (President) Bush are oilmen, they think like oil folks. ... We say grant the waiver."

This would be the most sweeping law regulating vehicle emissions in our nation's history (and it was passed in 2002, pre-Mr. Green Hummer, folks), and would lead to an 18% reduction in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere due to cars by 2020.

To his credit, Schwarzenegger (along with Brown) has vowed to sue the EPA if they don't act on this by October. And he and Connecticut's Jodi Rell penned a strong op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post about the issue.

It's bad enough that the federal government has yet to take the threat of global warming seriously, but it borders on malfeasance for it to block the efforts of states such as California and Connecticut that are trying to protect the public's health and welfare [...]

Since transportation accounts for one-third of America's greenhouse gas emissions, enacting these standards would be a huge step forward in our efforts to clean the environment and would show the rest of the world that our nation is serious about fighting global warming [...]

By continuing to stonewall California's request, the federal government is blocking the will of tens of millions of people in California, Connecticut and other states who want their government to take real action on global warming.

If this doesn't happen, by the way, it's because the President signed an executive order calling for federal agencies to "continue studying" global warming until the end of 2008 (hey, that coincides with the end of his term!), which may stall any action. Though this is a partisan blog, I think we can all agree that this is a noble effort to get the EPA to do the job the Supreme Court told it to do just one month ago, and grant the permission under the Clean Air Act to let California regulate vehicles the way it demands. The health of our planet is at stake, and we must see action on this soon.

You can contact the EPA yourself here.

Faster Than a Porsche, 250 Miles on a Single Charge - $35 Grand

So, today's "No Gas Tuesday." Every year around this time I get some spam email calling for a one-day boycott of the oil companies. “We’re not going to fill up our tanks for a whole day, man! That’ll show Exxon and Mobil and 76 and Chevron just who’s boss! Nobody buys gas on Thursday. No Gas Thursday!” Of course No Gas Thursday is followed by Buy A Lot of Gas Friday. Because as far as I know, cars still run on gas. And if you don’t buy any on Thursday, it’s not like they’re going to convert to corn overnight.

The smart way to eliminate dependence on foreign oil and the fossil fuel structure, aside from conservation, is to support sustainable cars. I went to this event with the CEO of Tesla Motors over the weekend. Tesla is not interested in making solar-powered golf carts; they are creating high-performance electric vehicles that look sexy and drive fast. The prototype Tesla Roadster goes 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds, benefiting from the torque generated by an electric battery-powered engine. The carbon fiber body is durable and light. It's faster than a Ferrari and looks just as sleek. The battery will take around an hour to fully charge; just plug in while you eat lunch, and you're ready to go 250 miles.

And the good news to me is that Tesla is not stopping there. The Roadster will hit stores this year and will have the sports car-equivalent price tag of around $100,000. Model II will be a sedan like a Lexus and will price around $50,000. And Model III will be around $35,000. Once they jump the barrier of making electric vehicles sexy, they will compete in the market where most people are buying. That's significant.

There's more at the link. But I was very impressed with Tesla's philosophy. Their dealerships will look more like a Starbucks than anything, with WiFi and good coffee, and mechanics working on the cars right out front ("like a fine restaurant where you can see the food being made," said the CEO). This is what will wean us off oil, not some ephemeral boycott. I believe that repsonsible government action and smart growth, combined with encouraging this kind of innovation, is the only way to change the system as it is today.

Cutting Through Ice

Progressives did a great job getting people in office in 2006 who share the same values. But it's going to take decades before we get enough turnover in office where that's going to make a real difference. Sure, the caucus is for the most part right on the Iraq war, but that's a layup. On too many other fronts, we're not seeing a lot of movement on the issues on which Democrats supposedly ran.

The biggest disappointment is that Democrats are stubbornly refusing to sever the ties between government and Big Money interests in the form of lobbyists.

House Democrats are suddenly balking at the tough lobbying reforms they touted to voters last fall as a reason for putting them in charge of Congress.

Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them. They're also having second thoughts about having to wait an extra year before they can become high-paid lobbyists themselves should they retire or be defeated at the polls.

The growing resistance to several proposed reforms now threatens passage of a bill that once seemed on track to fulfill Democrats' campaign promise of cleaner fundraising and lobbying practices.

"The longer we wait, the weaker the bill seems to get," said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, which has pushed for the changes. "The sense of urgency is fading," he said, in part because scandals such as those involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., have given way to other news.

Lobbying is a protected right in the First Amendment, and I don't want to see it go away any more than I would want a free press to be stopped. But making former lawmakers wait a couple years before crossing over and becoming lobbyists, and making lobbyists disclose details about the big money they scrounge up in contributions, is just sensible good-government stuff. Furthermore, it's terrible politics to rant and rave about a culture of corruption, only to leave the door open for that corruption after the election is over.

Second is this pernicious secret trade deal, the details of which have still yet to be released to the general public or the media. Of course, this didn't stop the traditional media from defending the deal and calling it a grand breakthrough in the spirit of high Broderist bipartisan compromise. The only compromise here is that members on both sides of the aisle have no problem screwing the American worker. Fair-trade Democrats were denied a chance to see the final agreement before the announcement (the US Chamber of Commerce, on the other hand, got a nice long look). Worse, the deal is just a precursor to giving the President fast-track authority, essentially a line-item veto for trade, so that the puny and unenforceable labor and environmental standards that might be in the deal could be legally wiped out with the stroke of a pen. The good news is that the majority of Democrats don't support the deal and will fight its passage, but it's not clear that will be enough.

The story on trade is really about seniority in the leadership and the top Congressional committees means that the majority opinion of the caucus can always be overridden by someone at the top. An additional example is fuel economy. All of the top Presidential candidates want to boost mileage averages, and even the Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill that would raise CAFE standards to 35mpg by 2020. But in the House, the relevant committee chair is John Dingell. Of Michigan. And he's not likely to budge, stiffening at the very hint of criticism.

U.S. Rep. John Dingell said he’s just a simple Polish lawyer from Detroit who is not running for higher office and not trying to make political points.

So he took umbrage today with a speech given last week by U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is running for president. In a speech to the Detroit Economic Club, Obama chastised the auto industry for not working harder to achieve better fuel-efficiency standards.

Dingell used his speech to the same organization to shoot back:

"I admire Sen. Obama’s enthusiasm..… But with all due respect, as the Sopranos would say — I would not travel to Chicago for the purpose of teaching people how to butcher hogs."

They don't butcher hogs in Chicago anymore, incidentally. And if I fucked up the auto industry the way the Big 3 have in the US over the past decade, including having to sell Chrysler for a fraction of what it was purchased for in 1998, I'd welcome any advice I could get. The truth is that fuel economy is the killer app of the 21st century, and the technology is with us today to make cars faster and to go further using less. But stubborn men like John Dingell want to protect the profits of their corporate buddies.

This is a major problem, not atypical, where the status quo bumps up against those who want real change. Progressives want to reduce the corrosive power of money in politics, give American workers a chance to compete without being priced out of the global market, and create a revolution in alternative energy in the name of environmental and national security. These are not controversial issues. But there is a generational political divide that is going to take a long time to breach.

Obama's Leadership on Alternative Energy

Barack Obama walked into the belly of the beast in Detroit today and told the automakers something they should have heard a long time ago: Nobody wants to buy your cars because they cost too much to power.

"For years, while foreign competitors were investing in more fuel-efficient technology for their vehicles, American automakers were spending their time investing in bigger, faster cars," he said, according to a text of his remarks. "And whenever an attempt was made to raise our fuel efficiency standards, the auto companies would lobby furiously against it, spending millions to prevent the very reform that could’ve saved their industry." In his speech, Mr. Obama proposed stricter fuel economy standards, greater availability of tax credits to consumers who buy hybrids or other ultra-efficient vehicles and subsidies to help automakers pay health care expenses in return for greater investment in advanced technology.

The health care-for-hybrids legislation was the one signature legislation Obama proposed in the 109th Congress. I thought it was pretty brilliant, and it was typical of Obama in that it sought to find areas of agreement among competing actors and make compromise. The plan is that America will help remove the crushing burden of health care legacy costs for US automakers if they'll just get off their ass and innovate, using those savings to step up alternative energy research and production.

Hilariously, Arnold Schwarzenegger rushed to put out a press release showing that Obama mentioned him in putting forward his full energy and climate change initiative, as if the Terminator owns the global warming issue or something. He'd do well to actually implement AB32 in California and stop putting out press releases every time someone mentions his name.

In fact, there's been significant global movement on coming up with plans to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The document made clear that nations have the technology and money to decisively act in time to avoid a sharp rise in temperatures that scientists say would wipe out species, raise ocean levels, wreak economic havoc and trigger droughts in some places and flooding in others.

Under the most stringent scenario, the report said the world must stabilize the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by 2015 - eight years from now - at 445 parts per million to keep global temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees over preindustrial levels.

Delegates said the approval of the report should conclusively debunk arguments by skeptics that combatting global warming was too costly, that it would stifle development in poorer countries, or that the temperature rise had gone too far to change.

"If we continue doing what we are doing now, we are in deep trouble," said Ogunlade Davidson, the co-chair of group responsible for finalizing the report this week.

Delegates hailed the policy statement as a key advance toward battling global warming and setting the stage for an even stronger international agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse emissions when it expires in 2012.

3.6 degrees in temperature is still a lot and would still wreak havoc. But the report shows that the technology is here today to at least slow things down; the only thing that isn't is commitment and leadership. That's why Obama's speech in Detroit today is so important. I don't need to hear about what needs to be done; the people who have been holding out for decades do. I do wish hee added a bit more of a sense of urgency to his pitch; for Obama, the question is always "Will he hold to principle when tested and resisted?" I'm not saying he won't, it's just that his instinct for compromise is well-known, and I'm hoping he doesn't just compromise the benefit out of any proposal. But this speech is a reassuring first step.

UPDATE: John Edwards had a very good response on this subject in a YouTube to DFA supporters (he's always the first one out of the gate on these; his campaign team really understands how to reach the netroots).