Obama’s campaign push for biofuels evokes Carter’s 1980 State of the Union address

Last week on the campaign trail at Ohio State University, President Barack Obama told a crowd of 2,600 students that drilling for more oil was not the solution to the energy problems of the United States, saying that wind, solar power and synthetic fuels were what were needed for the future. “We’ve added enough oil and gas pipeline to circle the entire earth and then some,” Obama said of oil exploration. “The problem is not that we’re not drilling or that we’re not producing more oil.” Throughout his tour of Ohio and other key battleground states vital for re-election in November, the president touched on similar themes and touted his biofuels initiatives. A key liberal ally — the League of Conservation Voters — assisted in the effort, launching a six-figure TV ad campaign promoting alternative fuels. Experts told The Daily Caller that the retail politics of alternative energy haven’t changed much, if at all, since President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 State of the Union — in which he asked Congress to budget for more spending on solar energy and for the nation’s “most massive peacetime investment in the development of synthetic fuels.” The politics, they said, are not likely to change any time soon either...more