FutureGen advocate reacts to Obama
In front of a joint session of Congress and millions of Americans across the country, President Barack Obama addressed such issues as employment rates, tax reform, education and the Iraq War.
But to some people in Coles County, one of the most important issues Obama spoke on was related to clean energy.
Angela Griffin, the president of Coles County Together, has helped in the efforts to bring the clean coal plant, FutureGen, to Mattoon.
With Obama speaking in favor of innovation and policy supporting clean energy, Griffin said she feels encouraged.
“I heard Obama say ‘America should not settle for being number two when it comes to developing clean energy,’ and he said that more than once,” Griffin said. “He specifically mentioned Europe and China and said they weren’t waiting to develop clean energy and we shouldn’t wait either.”
Obama said clean energy is a sector that has the ability to help pull America out of the recession by creating jobs.
“I think he has shown great commitment to investing and using incentives to create innovative new energy and new technical jobs,” Griffin said. “And those are exactly the kinds of jobs that FutureGen will represent.”
Still, the possibility of FutureGen passing through Congress is still unknown, even after the president’s encouragement.
“I don’t know if this has helped,” Griffin said. “Our president’s initiatives are not always the initiatives of Congress and, of course, he has to get bipartisan support and congressional support. But he did urge Congress to pass a comprehensive energy and climate bill.”
Obama also acknowledged those who do not believe global warming is a real threat to the environment, and told Congress it was still a good policy to provide incentives for clean energy jobs.
“The leader in clean energy will lead the global economy,” Obama said.
Griffin said Obama making clean energy good from an economic perspective helped as well.
“He took the whole argument for investing in clean energy and moved it beyond the climate change debate, and tried to show it makes good sense from an economic perspective,” Griffin said.
Kayleigh Zyskowski
can be reached at 581-7942
