On the second day of his tour of Southern California, President Obama highlighted his environmental jobs agenda with a visit to an electric-vehicle testing facility in Pomona, where he announced a $2.4-billion competitive grant program to make the electric vehicles more widely available.
The president renewed his commitment to doubling the country’s supply of renewable energy over the next few years—including spending $11 billion upgrading the nation’s power grid to ease the delivery of renewable energy across the country, and $15 million to help develop green technologies such as solar and wind power, and new coal technologies.
As a receptive audience of engineers and workers cheered his plans, Obama pledged to put a million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015, and highlighted his offer of up to $7,500 in tax credits for Americans who purchase electric vehicles.
The new $2.4-billion grant program, which would be part of his recovery program, would ask companies to compete for federal money to increase the manufacturing of batteries and parts used in the electric cars.
Whether President Barack Obama’s California visit rallied sufficient support for his economic stimulus package remains to be seen, but his arrival Thursday definitely juiced the spirits of those who have toiled for years here building, testing and maintaining the kind of electric-powered cars Obama says are the nation’s future.
Edison itself maintains a fleet of more than 300 electric and gas-electric hybrid vehicles that it says has logged more than 17 million miles.
But at a company whose name often lands in the news only after a power blackout, there was some concern about whether anybody was paying attention.
“We’ve been at times feeling maybe a little lonely out there with our support for electric transportation,” Edison International Chairman Ted Craver Jr. said after showing Obama around the plant. “To have this recognition, this exposure of electric transportation and what we have been able to accomplish is just a real thrill for the company.”
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