Obama Pledges to Convert White House Fleet to Plug-in Hybrids

Barack Obama’s campaign pledged today that the entire White House auto fleet will be converted to plug-in hybrid vehicles, as security permits, if the senator is elected president.

The pledge is part of Obama’s energy plan that he is set to unveil this morning in a speech in Lansing, Mich., fewer than 100 miles from the headquarters of Ford and General Motors in Dearborn and Detroit.

By 2012, the campaign said, half of all cars purchased by the federal government will be plug-in hybrids or completely powered by electricity.

The campaign posed its pledges as attempts to “help create a market” for electric and hybrid cars and “show government leadership” in swaying the public towards them.