The President’s address made a point of noting that if we want to continue America’s tradition of innovation, we must lead the green technology race on our own soil. He urged the country to push forward instead of sitting back and allowing that technology to advance overseas in countries like China. His speech was centered on broad themes and notably carried few specifics but one topic he did go into detail about was our sustainability. He spent a noticeable amount of time laying out his plans to get the US off foreign oil, bring our transportation system up to the standards of many European nations and detailed his plans to have the government fund innovations in clean energy. “We’re issuing a challenge,” the President said. “We’re telling America’s scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we’ll fund the Apollo projects of our time.”

With investments from the government, like the ones he announced last night, we might be able to get 80% of our energy from clean sources even before his 2035 goal and with companies like GM promising to push more electric vehicles onto the road we’re probably well on our way to hearing the sweet sound of 1 million EVs by 2015. “We need to get behind this innovation,” the President noted, “and to help pay for it, I’m asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies…so instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy, let’s invest in tomorrow’s.” That last one was a doozy, retracting oil company subsidies seemed like a direct challenge to Congress to try to deny him. Removing those subsidies will make the price of oil rise — and make many groups across the country angry — but more expensive oil means more people will turn to other options like biodiesel and clean electricity.

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