Energy

When Barack Obama gave his big energy speech on Monday, his campaign released an eight-page fact sheet [PDF] to go with it. All the way at the end, at the very bottom of the last page -- after the parts about plug-in electric vehicles, oil shale, and clean coal technology -- there's this paragraph:

Back in his Straight Talkin' days Senator John McCain acknowledged that offshore drilling wasn't a viable solution for America's energy troubles. In 2003, he broke with the Bush Administration and co-introduced legislation to reduce carbon emissions, by, in effect, imposing a price on them. McCain had a reputation for being a politician who told the American people the truth, even when the truth wasn't something that people particularly wanted to hear. But the past few weeks have seen a fundamental change in McCain, writes Elizabeth Kolbert in an outstanding piece in this week's New Yorker:

Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling. Click through to view the comic in its entirety.

The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would provide emergency funding to local transit systems facing simultaneous increases in ridership and fuel costs. The legislation is now stalled in the Senate and the Bush Administration has expressed concern that "transit operators risk becoming permanently reliant upon this type of assistance." Meanwhile, when it comes to subsidizing Midwestern farmers, ethanol producers, and the operating costs of America's fleet of private motor vehicles... well, here's how Michael Daly of the Daily News summed it up in his column yesterday:

The MTA just released some figures from its preliminary 2009 financial plan. Here's what was actually happening to our transit system while the dailies were focused like a laser beam on board members' travel perks and the CEO's "scandalous" three percent raise:

As the drumbeat for domestic drilling grows louder, can the Democratic leadership come up with a better alternative than tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Over at the Huffington Post, Shelley Poticha and Geoff Anderson of Transportation for America propose a few ideas that will actually pay dividends. Pols who are serious about reducing the impact of high gas prices should listen up:

Nick Anderson / Houston Chronicle

The Gas Tax Holiday may have petered out, but John McCain still has a lot of petroleum-based populism left in the tank. His latest campaign ad, "Pump," primes the audience with a little wishful thinking.