CNN's Ali Velshi enthusiastically touted the Obama administration's
promotion of "alternative energy" on Tuesday's Newsroom, and advanced
the idea that the field would become a major economic force: "This may be the driver of the economy for the next 15 years....And I
will give this administration credit. It is such a dramatic increase
over the last administration's commitment to alternative energy."
Velshi brought on correspondent Josh Levs to discuss the current
administration's latest push concerning the "stimulus," focusing on the
percentage of the $862 billion spent on "green" energy: "Vice President
Biden [is] talking about what's been done for energy, and they released
this report, saying $100 billion out of the $862 billion stimulus is
going to innovation- things like electric cars, things like solar
power."
After Levs cited some of Biden's figures, the CNN anchor reacted with his "15 years" prediction and added, "I
mean, nobody can come up with a more obvious driver. It's not going to
be the credit system. It's not going to be banks. It's not going to be
other things. It may be this." He concluded with his endorsement of the Obama administration "commitment to alternative energy."
Earlier in 2010, on February 17, Velshi celebrated the one-year anniversary of the "dear stimulus," [1] as he called it, with a birthday cake. The anchor has also previously endorsed the mandatory regulation [2] of carbon dioxide emissions, and even described such emissions as "sins" as he touted carbon credits [3].
The transcript of the relevant portion of the segment on Tuesday's
Newsroom, starting at the 46 minutes into the 2 pm Eastern hour mark:
VELSHI: I'm here with Josh. Josh and I have spent a lot of time studying the Recovery Act- the stimulus bill, and lately, there's been a lot of discussion as to how much good this bill has done for the economy. So, President- Vice President Biden was out there today, touting one particular part of it- LEVS: Yeah-
VELSHI: Worth $100 billion and saying what it's done.
LEVS: Right, and the background is, of course, President Obama is facing a lot of criticism, even these days. The poll numbers are showing a lot of people really dissatisfied with his handling of the economy. So, you got the White House doing more and more events, saying- hey, look at the great stuff we've gotten done.
So, now Vice President Biden talking about what's been done for energy, and they released this report, saying $100 billion out of the $862 billion stimulus is going to innovation- things like electric cars, things like solar power. I think we have some video. I'm going you tell you some of the numbers that they're putting out today about what's been happening with some of this stimulus money. They're saying that the U.S. is on track to cut the cost of solar power by 50 percent in five- oh, look at that. (Velshi laughs) That's me driving an electric car last summer, a little Anvil one. They're saying the cost of electric vehicle batteries is going to drop seven percent by 2015. They're saying total U.S. capacity to generate renewable energy will double by 2012. So, what they're doing is they're pushing these kinds of things-
VELSHI: Yeah-
LEVS: And they're saying- hey, America is saying we need cleaner energy. America is saying we need innovation to compete with other nations-
VELSHI: And this may be the driver of the economy for the next 15 years. I mean, nobody can come up with a more obvious driver. It's not going to be the credit system-
LEVS: Right-
VELSHI: It's not going to be banks. It's not going to be other things. It may be this. And I will give this administration credit. It is such a dramatic increase over the last administration's commitment to alternative energy. Fine- let's put that as a check mark in their column.
-Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here [4].