Obama amplifies renewable energy push, announces $1B in loan guarantees for

President Obama is speaking this evening at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada after announcing executive action and private sector commitment to developing technology that helps households save on energy bills and transition to cleaner energy sources.

President Barack Obama brought presidential star power to tout the benefits of solar electricity in Western states during an annual green power conference Monday in Las Vegas hosted by U.S. Sen.

He gave shout-outs specifically to Wal-Mart, Google, Apple and Costco – companies he said were investing in renewable energy to run their businesses.

Among the other orders was a new $1 billion loan guarantee authority for distributed energy projects, approval of a new transmission line to deploy solar energy, and a new $24 million ARPA-E initiative aiming to double the amount of energy solar cells can produce, according to a White House fact sheet. “We’re taking steps to allow more Americans to join this revolution with no money down”, he said.

“I’m getting resistance from some fossil fuel interests who want to protect the outdated status quo. It’s one thing if you are insistent on being free market, it’s another thing if you’re free market until it’s solar that’s working and people want to buy it”.

“We really feel this is a major opportunity to expand this dramatically and to contribute to the clean energy”, said Ernest Moniz, U.S. Secretary of Energy in a press call Monday morning.

“On the heels of EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which includes energy efficiency as the easiest, fastest and cheapest way to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions, the Administration continues to advance energy efficiency as the cornerstone to building the modern American energy economy”, said Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy.

“We have engaged in this debate many times before”, he said, “… the debate is between those who say, ‘No we can’t, ‘ and those who say, ‘Yes we can’.

It would also be an important reset for Obama after his failure to secure a significant global climate deal at the 2009 conference in Copenhagen during his first term, despite rushing there in person at the last minute to plead for progress. “Solar isn’t just for the green crowd anymore”, he said. The Blythe Mesa plant is predicted to supply sufficient renewable power to energy greater than 145,000 houses.

The Heartland Institute, a conservative assume tank that denies artifical local weather change and will get cash from the Koch brothers was amongst teams co-sponsoring a simultaneous “reasonably priced power summit” in Las Vegas as a counterpoint to Reid’s gathering.

Later, the president will attend a fundraiser in Henderson for Democratic senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto.