President Obama Announces Seed Money on Natural Gas Vehicles

President Barack Obama has delivered the most definitive repudiation yet to energy-related attacks from Republicans that want to replace him next year, in a speech before an audience at the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables, Florida. Taking the other end of the Republican oil-centric energy plan, the President announced a $30-million funding the Department of Energy will avail researchers to harness natural gas for use in vehicles. It has been open season on the Oval Office incumbent on energy this election season, as the remaining Republican candidates seek to capture votes from citizens whose bottom lines have been hard-hit by increasing prices at the gas pump. Criticism toward the president has picked up speed over his administration's postponement on a decision over the TransCanada's TRP Keystone XL project. The 36-inch pipeline (connecting Alberta, Canada to Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas in the US) faced intense heat from environmentalists, whose considerable voting bloc the White House may have arguably avoided alienating tabling the issue till after elections. This prompted newly-minted Presidential-hopeful heavyweight Rick Santorum to denounce Mr. Obama as having a “phony theology” by bowing to radical environmentalists and neglecting human needs over those of the planet. Messrs Romney and Gingrich have also made known their position in favor of maximizing utilization of domestic resources, including more drilling as key to unlock supply and depress escalating gas prices. The president's response has been that more drilling is no silver bullet on today's high prices. “Anyone who claims the U.S. can drill its way out of high gas prices, doesn't know what they are talking about or just isn't telling you the truth,” he said, hinting at the fact that domestically sourced supply will not eradicate other prevalent factors in the world today, such as China's exorbitant appetite for oil or supply-disrupting geopolitical troubles in Iran. Instead, he believes in an all-of-the-above approach to the gas price crisis. Not letting the backlash on the $500-million failed bet on Solyndra last year, the president's natural gas funding initiative shows alternative energy sources still play a central role in diminishing the U.S. dependency on foreign oil. Mr. Obama believes the $30-million seed money would enable natural gas breakthroughs that would usher in a new ear in which American energy needs are fulfilled from the safe and responsible utilization of a near-100-year domestic supply. Further more, the president believes such deveopments would create more than 600,000 domestic jobs. Currently, natural gas-powered vehicles are rare, to say the least. Honda Motor HMC sells the only passenger car running on compressed natural gas, the Honda Civic GX. General Motors GM sells CNG powered Chevrolet Express vans to commercial customers. Chrysler Group is also working on vehicles that will run on CNG, but currently has none in the market.