|
Post by bot on Dec 4, 2008 23:21:52 GMT -5
Renewable energy advocates gather Posted: 03:09 PM ET By Steve Hargreaves CNNMoney.com WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — Renewable energy advocates were upbeat Thursday as they met to discuss energy policies expected under the incoming Obama administration.
“Candidate Obama made alternative energy a central part of his campaign,” former Sen. Tom Daschle, now Obama’s pick for secretary of health and human services, told the crowd at the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill. “It will soon be a new day for national climate and energy policy.”
Daschle, from corn-producing South Dakota, plugged corn-based ethanol, despite criticism that it drives up food prices and has minimal environmental benefit.
“Too many public interest and environmental groups have bought flawed information,” he said. “The corn ethanol industry portrayed by snapshots of yesterday is a far cry from the corn ethanol industry of tomorrow.”
Former Central Intelligence Agency chief James Woolsey made plain why he thinks the nation must move away from oil — because, he said, it’s a major national security threat. He drew no punches in connecting financing for terrorist organizations to this nation’s use of oil, much of which the United States buys from Saudi Arabia.
|
|