Energy, enviro reactions to Obama’s address

Here’s a roundup of some reactions:

League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski: “We applaud President Obama’s call for ending oil subsidies, transitioning to a 21st century transportation system and enforcing commonsense safeguards to protect our air and water, but we object to his attempt to redefine clean energy to include nuclear and so-called ‘clean coal.'”

Pew Center on Global Climate Change President Eileen Claussen: “President Obama understands that capitalizing on today’s clean energy opportunities will propel American job growth and help ensure that the United States has the most competitive and innovative economy in the world. Providing the regulatory certainty businesses need for industries to invest in clean energy to drive economic growth should be a key Administration priority over the next two years.”

BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director David Foster: “Congress should take up the President’s challenge and pass policies to jumpstart the development and production of clean energy technologies in the United States, including a federal Renewable Electricity Standard and the critical investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, education and broadband that will support the American economy of the future.”

Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica: “President Obama says he wants to lead the country in clean energy innovation. Unfortunately, requiring more coal, nuclear power, and natural gas production is not leadership and is not innovation. Coal, nuclear power, biofuels, and natural gas are inherently dirty. Telling Americans anything else is just misleading.

Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Dan Weiss: “President Obama reiterated that he will ‘create or enforce commonsense safeguards’ to protect Americans from harm.  This should include requiring coal fired power plants and oil refineries to cut mercury, carbon, smog and other dangerous pollutants.”

National Association of Manufacturers President Jay Timmons: “[T]o unleash the power of innovation, we cannot continue to place costly, unnecessary burdens on businesses and put them on an uneven playing field with our global competitors. This stifles job creation and economic growth. We also cannot pick winners and losers and pit industry sectors against each other in order to achieve our goals. To enhance our competitiveness, businesses cannot continue to be faced with higher energy costs, higher taxes and government overregulation.”

Consumer Energy Alliance President David Holt said: “Americans need more affordable and accessible renewable energy, but not at the expense of those resources we rely on every day, and certainly not at the rate of billions of dollars in tax increases. Along with more solar power and other renewables, we should also expand access to all sources of energy – everything from offshore oil and gas to more affordable nuclear development.”

Institute for Energy Research President Thomas Pyle: “The President continues to talk about how America needs to become more competitive.  But his Administration’s plans do nothing but hurt our ability to compete.  We don’t have a competitiveness problem, an innovation problem, or a resource availability problem; we have a government problem.”

American Wind Energy Association President Denise Bode: “We are pleased to see the possibility of the first predictable long-term federal policy toward renewable energy. But of course we’ll need to make sure the policy really deploys the renewable energy Americans want in the near term, as well as the long term.”