Will OBAMA do what he said he would do or was he lieing?

Not So Green: Voters Nix Most Environmental State Ballot Measures
Posted by Keith Johnson

Voters didn’t just decide on the president or Congress yesterday. Among five major energy and environmental ballot initiatives from California to Missouri, all but one were voted down. Does that mean that apparent public support for clean energy withers away when the rubber meets the road?


Some noxious measures (AP)
Not necessarily. But it does suggest that any government plans to boost clean energy have to be sharply focused, realistic, and present a clear win for voters, who are also consumers. Grist has a great rundown on state-level initatives, here.

Take California, which shot down both of the clean-energy propositions on the ballot. Proposition 7 would have established new rules to ramp up renewable energy, while Proposition 10 would have provided $5 billion to jumpstart natural-gas vehicles in the state, already an environmental leader. What happened?

Many environmentalists, business groups, and renewable-energy companies opposed Proposition 7, along with practically every newspaper, because it could have actually stunted clean-energy growth by discouraging small solar power and muddling regulatory responsibilities. The measure garnered just 35% support.

Proposition 10 was vilified as a sop to the fossil-fuel industry in general, and T. Boone Pickens in particular. California already has low emissions standards, and new climate-change and growth policies aim to curb transport emissions even further. Prop 10 got 41% support.

Ambitious renewable-energy targets didn’t even win in San Francisco, where Proposition H lost. The measure would have mandated rapid increases in the city’s use of clean energy, including a requirement to be 100% renewable by 2040. But it also meant another stab at taking over the city’s private electricity company, a measure which never fails to fail. Even San Francisco’s famously green mayor, Gavin Newsom, opposed the measure.

Coloradans voted for Barack Obama and environmentally-friendly Senate candidate Mark Udall over oil-industry veteran Bob Shaffer. Yet they struck down a ballot measure that would have increased taxes on the oil and gas industries to pay for more goodies such as environmental conservation and clean energy. Opponents of the measure took it as a harbinger of higher energy taxes.

Only in Missouri did a green-energy ballot initiative have any success. Proposition C set out to gradually increase the use of renewable energy to 15% by 2021, mandating slow-but-steady yearly increases. That’s the kind of measure that power companies and electricity grid operators like, because it gives them time to absorb the new power into the system without disruptions. Alone among the five environmental ballot initiatives, Proposition C had almost no opposition.

WT? "Will OBAMA do what he said he would do or was he lieing?"

He's not even President yet!


"Only in Missouri did a green-energy ballot initiative have any success."

I voted for this.

"Yes we can."

Obama isn't the president yet.

Come on ladies and gentlemen!

Let's not confuse some posters with facts!

yeah i do enough of that for everyone lol

that is why so many ignore me

the facts do not fit in comfortably

I'm not really sure what the relation between your story and whether Obama was lying or not is, but he is only one man. The nation as a whole has to believe in converting to clean energy and we have to be willing to pay for it. I support the Pickens Plan because it makes sense to me. Someone said in another post that wind was not a viable option. All I can say is that person has never been to Oklahoma. We got a ton of it! I'm willing to let T. Boone put a windmill in my backyard!

what a bitter prune! lets not forget what GW did to the EPA polution standards... let alonr the rest of the country