Barack Obama, Energy | featured news

Barack Obama will use a visit to a Chicago-area lab on Friday to call on Congress to set aside $2bn over the next decade to fund research into a next generation of electric cars. The White House said the Energy Security Trust, which Obama first proposed in his state of the union address, would use royalties from offshore oil and gas drilling in public waters and would not add to the deficit.

Mitt Romney is more apt today to talk about his support for oil drilling than about the environmental policies that he advocated while governor of Massachusetts... It was May 2006. Mr. Romney, the Massachusetts governor, was chatting up his Montana counterpart about his vision for an energy-efficient car of the future — lightweight and narrow, with tandem-style seating, so that two vehicles could drive side by side in one highway lane.

Citing national security risks, President Barack Obama on Friday blocked a Chinese company from owning four wind farm projects in northern Oregon near a Navy base where the U.S. military flies unmanned drones and electronic-warfare planes on training missions....

Even as President Barack Obama considers using U.S. oil stockpiles to halt rising gasoline costs in an election year, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday shows economic pain at the pump is not a big concern for voters.

In April, I predicted that President Obama’s $52 million plan to increase the margin requirements and otherwise tighten the screws on oil speculators — who borrow huge sums to bet on the direction of oil without taking delivery — would cut oil prices by 10%. He’s beaten that prediction and the lowered prices of gasoline has added $78.4 billion to its consumers’ spending power.

Watching these ads is a depressing duty for The Fact Checker, because many of their claims — regarding “billions” of stimulus dollars going overseas — had been debunked two years ago by our colleagues at PolitiFact and Factcheck.org. Yet here the erroneous assertions emerge yet again, without any shame, labeled as “the truth” or “fact.”

Two pro-Obama groups slam Mitt Romney as a tool of the oil industry in a TV ad that plays up high gas prices.

President Obama on Tuesday urged Congress to help strengthen federal supervision of international oil markets, amid pressure from U.S. voters to take action on rising gasoline prices. The president wants Congress to increase penalties for market manipulation and empower regulators to increase the amount of money energy traders are required to put behind their transactions.

President Obama's re-election team is already waging a campaign against Mitt Romney, including an ad linking him to big oil companies.