Energy Secretary Steven Chu has postponed his trip to China, scheduled for next week, after President Obama asked him to stay to continue to oversee the government’s response to the month-old BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
So far, much of the clean energy debate has focused on cap-and-trade, but little attention has been paid to the other rationale put out by the Obama administration in defense of its green energy plan – JOBS. That changed yesterday, with the (unofficial) roll out of the administration’s new clean energy talking point: “Green energy creates jobs…” or something like that.
This PR-driven White House engineered a two-part roll out. First, it began with an event, the White House Energy Forum, (PR 101: create an event to decimate a specific message), moderated by Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. Next came a presidential speech – that was earlier today at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where President Obama dusted up old campaign rhetorics on green energy as a job creator.
(The Environmental Capital’s Keith Johnson take on the speech: “There was little new.” See here for the whole speech or here for GER’s take on it.) Read More »
