An Environmental Litmus Test for Obama

We all have high hopes for the Obama administration and what it can and will accomplish in the first 100 days and beyond. Some policies seem inevitable: an economic bailout package, a plan for ending the debacle in Iraq and the disgrace of the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. We are all waiting for Obama to solve the variety of problems that we view as priorities in the reshaping and rebuilding of this country after eight years of darkness, deceit, and malfeasance under the Bush Administration. The St. Petersburg Times is tracking Obama's progress in a helpful format here.

Perhaps the biggest test for the Obama administration will be to buck the trend of dirty energy subsidies and move the country to clean energy like wind, solar, geothermal, and clean biomass. This doesn't only mean signing legislation and issuing executive orders that mandate clean energy. Legislation on global warming is a guarantee. The real question is whether President Obama and Congress will continue the status quo of funding and defending dirty energy companies, their massive profits, and their role in fueling America's overconsumption of its energy supply at the planet's expense.

The first test of the Obama administration's environmental commitment looks to be a resurrection of an old specter in Obama's environmental record: liquefied coal. Coal to liquid or CTL has twice the carbon dioxide emissions of normal diesel fuel without a carbon trapping capacity, about 4.5 billion for one plant without carbon sequestration. Obama co-sponsored a 2007 Senate bill that would have given massive subsidies for research and development into liquefied coal. On the presidential campaign trail, Obama backpedaled in his support for liquefied coal and relented that he would only support such technology if the pollution from the fuel was reduced by 20%, which seemed to quiet the issue in the election, especially since John McCain was also supporting CTL.

But now the CTL issue has resurfaced, albeit quietly, as the United States Air Force is using a staggering $18 to 30 billion dollar gift from Congress to develop a liquefied coal technology that would have all fighter jets running on a highly polluting coal-diesel cocktail by 2016.

This is a real opportunity for Obama to set the clean energy agenda if he is truly serious about moving the United States to reduce our global warming pollution. Obama should move to cancel this project for the Air Force and use the billions of dollars committed to the project to create a new green economy focusing on clean, renewable energy and a sound economic future for the country.