Green Energy Conference: Obama targets Critics of His Energy Policies

President Barack Obama headed to Las Vegas, Nevada for a climate speech Monday night, his first day back from vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard.

He declared himself ready for the challenges he faces dealing with a Republican Congress that disagrees with him on the budget, energy policy and other issues.

In Ottumwa, Iowa, on Monday, GOP presidential hopeful Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal argued that Obama’s programs are not helping the American economy.

The President has just announced a new plan to help homeowners get access to renewable energy.

The Obama administration announced more than $1 billion in funding and a flurry of new initiatives Monday to boost clean energy, including the approval of a massive solar project in Riverside County. So far, use of Property-Assessed Clean Energy financing has been constrained by regulatory obstacles. A full list of the executive actions can be found on the White House website. To be eligible for the added loan proceeds, the homeowner can use of a streamlined measure of home efficiency (the DOE’s Home Energy Score) to show the improvements will reduce expenses.

“And we are deeply optimistic about American ingenuity”, Obama said.

“That’s not progress. That’s not innovation”, Obama said at the eighth annual Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas. He said people too often have been “priced out” of clean-energy options.

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

The US president endorsed Reid’s support. “We really feel there is a major opportunity to expand this dramatically and contribute to clean energy”. These approved projects represent almost $40 billion in potential capital investments by industry in clean energy development. While many critics believe that moving away from carbon will increase the costs of energy, the president explained that renewable energy has become financially viable.

Obama said the growth in solar – which is 20 times bigger than it was in 2008, is “like evolving from the telegraph to the smartphone in less than a decade”.

“You don’t have to share my passion for fighting climate change”, he said. In addition to Obama, speakers included leaders from utilities, solar technology companies, renewable energy finance firms and electric carmaker Tesla. The President used the speech to announce a set of executive actions and private sector commitments to accelerate America?s transition to cleaner sources of energy and ways to cut energy waste. With the help of a nonprofit organization called ReChoice, they’re acquiring SECs and breaking them up into fractions they’ve called SunJoules. Every three minutes another home or business in America goes solar.

President Obama was just being “a little flip“, a White House spokesman told reporters aboard Air Force One Tuesday. “But in this situation, they’re trying to undermine competition in the marketplace and choke off consumer choice and threaten the industry that is churning out jobs at a fast pace”.