April 25, 2026

Can Electric Whirr Save The American Auto Industry?

by Keith Schneider0

DETROIT – The old sound of Detroit’s automakers was an octane-stoked Vroom! The sound of Detroit’s future, say top auto industry executives, is an electric whirr. General Motors plans to introduce its breakthrough Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid electric vehicle in November 2010. Ford is already selling the 40-mile per gallon hybrid electric Fusion sedan and is preparing a plug-in model for introduction in 2012. Last December, Chrysler introduced three electric vehicles it is developing for the …

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Death of a Great Reporter

by Keith Schneider21

My friend John Wilke, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and one of the smartest no-nonsense journalists I ever had the good fortune to know, died today. A man who chose the news as the center of his professional life did an awful good job of keeping his own illness from being the news. I only learned of his trials with cancer a little more than a week ago. But for those of us …

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Next: Stimulus Is Just The Start, Galbraith Argues, To Federal Leadership in Clean Energy Development

by Keith Schneider0

In mid-January, as the House of Representatives and the incoming Obama administration readied the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus bill, James K. Galbraith joined a 10-member delegation from the Apollo Alliance in Washington to make the case for a big investment in clean energy and green-collar jobs. On Tuesday, February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which contains $11 billion to build a state-of-the art national energy grid, $6 …

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Jerome Ringo’s Tireless Pursuit of Clean Energy Economy

by Keith Schneider0

Like other nationally prominent public interest leaders, Apollo Alliance President Jerome Ringo spent a few days after Barack Obama’s election considering its full meaning. It wasn’t just that the new president was African American like himself. It was also that President Obama had campaigned and won on almost precisely the same call for a clean energy, good jobs economic transition that Ringo has championed for the Apollo Alliance from one end of America to the …

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Obama’s Clean Energy Salute to Greensburg, Kansas

by Keith Schneider1

Last night, in his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama commended Greensburg, Kansas, “a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community, how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay.” America loves its small towns, and two presidents now have …

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Recovery Bill is Breakthrough on Clean Energy, Good Jobs

by Keith Schneider1

In signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act today President Barack Obama ensured that $113.5 billion will be spent over the next two years on developing clean fuels, modernizing rail transit, pursuing energy efficiency, developing high-mileage electric vehicles, and scaling up electrical generating stations powered by the wind, sun, and heat of the earth. The magnitude of the clean energy investment – consistent with the sums spent to launch the Interstate Highway System in the …

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Carol Browner Needs Focus on The Stimulus

by Keith Schneider0

This afternoon Carol Browner appeared on the CNN Situation Room where she didn’t do nearly as good a job answering questions about clean energy and the stimulius as the President and the nation need her to. The stimulus contains more than $115 billion dollars in investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy development, transit, fit-it-first road repair, research and development, experimental projects on carbon sequestration, and manufacturing for next generation vehicles. The scale and comprehensive nature …

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“Building Sprawl Forever, Those Days Are Over,” Obama Declares

by Keith Schneider0

Today in Ft. Myers, Florida, President Barack Obama addressed what is arguably the central source of America’s energy crisis, climate crisis, and jobs crisis. And that is the way we’ve civilized ourselves. Or to put it more directly, the design of our spread out, energy-wasting, time-consuming, land-deteriorating, sprawling patterns of development. As Larry the Cable Guy would say, we could go on about this all day. A national smart growth movement that grew up in …

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Clean Energy Is Foundation of Proposed Stimulus

by Keith Schneider1

Even in this era of costly crisis and even more expensive rescue, $112.9 billion is still a lot of money. That sum is what Congressional leaders and President-elect Barack Obama propose to spend over the next two years to build new transit lines, weatherize buildings, manufacture clean next-generation vehicles, develop wind and solar power, make state and federal vehicle fleets more energy efficient, and create new green-collar jobs. The details of the proposed stimulus package, …

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Fast Track For National Rail Transit

by Keith Schneider0

MINNEAPOLIS – Technically speaking “light rail transit” encompasses an urban rail line capable of carrying 2,000 to 20,000 passengers an hour at speeds reaching 70 miles per hour. “Heavy rail” describes longer, faster commuter and inter-city trains. The reality of light and heavy rail in this city of 400,000, and in 29 other cities across the United States that have built light rail, street car, and commuter rail systems since 1984, is much more encompassing …

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