Obama Puts $2.4B into Grants for Electric Vehicles

President Obama has announced $2.4 billion dollars in new grants for electric vehicle development. The funds are included in the $787 billion dollar stimulus plan. The plan will also give a $7,500 tax credit to people who buy plug-in vehicles. Obama has vowed to compete with foreign nations in the race to be world leader on renewable energy.

From The Huffington Post:

“We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad or we can create them here in America and lay the foundation for lasting prosperity,” Obama said on the second day of a campaign-style swing in California.

He set a target of putting a million of the environmentally friendly vehicles on US roads by 2015.

But that doesn’t compare favorably to plans by some other, smaller countries. Here at HuffPost Green, we marveled at Spain’s electric vehicle program just yesterday — that country, whose population isn’t quite one-sixth the size of ours — is shooting for a million electric vehicles by 2012, in addition to pilot infrastructure programs in three major cities.

We are definitely way behind, but who do we have to thank for that? 8 years of profits-over-people-and-environment Republican “leadership”. The Bush Administration was all about maintaining the environmentally unfriendly status quo for their buddies in industry, and Obama has done an admirable job thus far helping to make up for lost time.

Is $2.4 billion for electric vehicles enough? Maybe not, but it’s a thrilling start, and at least we’re finally getting somewhere.

Link [The Huffington Post]

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