Obama on Energy Independence

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The first two thirds of Obama’s speech today got my hopes up that he was backing away from the corn-ethanol shtick. But the last third brought me down to earth. Even if corn-ethanol takes third place in his speech now, the corn-belt senator would probably never drop support for corn-ethanol subsidies, which may be the biggest greenwash ever.

All around, his proposals are better developed than in his speech one year ago. He proposes to raise fuel economy standards by 4 percent per year, instead of just 3 percent. He also wants to subsidize Detroit’s move to hybrid vehicles. And he supports a carbon cap-and-trade system. What would work much better would be to tax carbon emissions and raise the fuel tax. But they don’t call taxes the third rail for nothing.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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