Barack Obama introduced his new energy plan (pdf) in a speech yesterday (pdf) in Lansing, Michigan.

The plan includes several promising and innovative policy proposals, a few questionable ideas and a perfect opportunity for Senator McCain to make an ass of himself.

The Good

The “Green Vet Initiative”:

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.

Talk about killing multiple birds with one stone. As David Sasson points out:

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.

The plan also includes an aggressive strategy for transitioning to electric cars as quickly as possible. It would:

• Invest in advanced vehicle technology with a specific focus on R&D in advanced battery technology.
• Provide a $7,000 tax credit for the purchase of advanced technology vehicles.
• Ensure that within one year of becoming President, the entire White House fleet will be converted to plug-ins as security permits.
• Require half of all cars purchased by the federal government to be plug-in hybrids or all-electric by 2012.

The target cited in the plan is 1 million plug-in hybrids, capable of 150 MPG, on the road by 2015. David Sasson reminds us that “nobody until now has floated a plan for the rescue of Detroit that makes so much sense.”

Joseph Romm at Climate Progress calls it “easily the best energy plan ever put forward by a nominee of either party.” He has the most concise and compelling summary I’ve seen.

The Bad

Tucked into page five, there is a section called “Promote the Supply of Domestic Energy”. It includes proposals for increased drilling in Montana, North Dakota, Texas and Arkansas for various types oil shale and “unconventional natural gas supplies”, as well as opening the 23.5 million acres in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve.

Further down on page six, the plan calls for “public private partnerships to develop five ‘first of a kind’ commercial scale coal-fired plants with carbon capture and sequestration.” Remember, all coal is dirty and CCS is a scam.

On nuclear, the plan is ambivalent. Obama refuses to rule out nuclear as an option and promises to… try to find something to do with nuclear waste. He does emphasize the importance of tracking and safeguarding nuclear materials, but I’d much rather see a candidate with the strength to say we won’t build new plants.

As I mentioned before, this thing is fairly comprehensive, so I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it covers.

The Ugly

As pointed out by Crooks and Liars, the Republican attacks on this energy plan are misleading and outright silly.

I’ve been trying to figure out the same thing for days. As the Obama campaign kicked off “energy week” with a new contrast ad and a policy speech in Michigan, Time’s Mark Halperin reports, “McCain supporters in Michigan will distribute tire gauges at Obama’s energy speech in Lansing. The RNC will also deliver gauges reading ‘Obama’s energy plan’ to Washington newsrooms.”

It looks like far-right blogs have received their copies of the Republican script, too. RedState.org’s Erick Erickson is on message: “Inflating your tires and getting a regular tune-up sounds more like Obama’s plan for ego maintenance than it does for helping American families.” Ed Morrissey added, “…Obama refers to ‘big oil’ and the need to reduce our use of oil by 35% over the next twenty years. How do we get there? Keep inflating those tires, folks.”

We are, quite obviously, in the midst of a very aggressive roll-out here. John McCain criticized the notion of well-inflated tires on Friday, and Newt Gingrich described Obama’s remarks as “loony toons” during a Fox News interview. Over the weekend, McCain said, “It seems to me the only thing [Obama] wants us to do is inflate tires” to improve gas mileage.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, still auditioning for the role of VP, even took to using a tire gauge as a prop.

As Bill Scher points out, inflating tires will have more of an impact on the amount of money Americans spend on gas than offshore drilling would. They’ve never let facts get in the way before, so why start now?

Here are the tire gauges the McCain campaign is pushing through their emails for the low, low price of $25.

If you need one, you can get it much cheaper from Amazon.

WHAT'S NEXT?

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