Obama's Energy Reform

During the debates we saw Energy as a top list priority for the Obama Administration. It took $4-a-gallon gas for political leaders to recognize that borrowing from the Chinese and sending money to Saudi Arabia is not an energy plan.  As a result Obama and Biden have constructed a New Energy Plan for America.  The urgency of energy reform has died down in recent months due to the commodities crash.  However oil is still not an everlasting natural resource and America needs to lead an Energy Revolution to take off not only the U.S., but the whole world off oil. Obama's plan is to help create 5 million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next 10 years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.  The green energy options are abyss from plug-in hybrids to clean coal and bio-fuel.  Clean-tech investing has been booming since October as Venture Capitalists poured over $1.6 billion into U.S. firms.  This sector has slowed down like everything else because of the availability of capital, but should bounce back thanks to an Obama bump.  It still is a hesitant industry to invest in yet if you do want to jump the ship and invest I recommend pure plays like Suntech Power (STP), First Solar (FSLR), and LDK Solar (LDK).  The next step proposed by higher fuel economy standards for our gasoline fueled vehicles with a transition to plug-in hybrid electric fuel cars. This news makes it impossible for me to recommend any automakers and would stay away from both General Motors (GM) and Ford (F).  Toyota (TM) might have a chance just because of their large Asian consumer base back home but i would still not invest without extreme caution.  The next step to Obama's plan is to put 1 million plug-in hybrid cars that can get up to 150 mpg on the road and make sure they are built here in America.  Barack also wants to ensure that 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025.  An investing opportunity here is Duke Energy (DUK).  The final policy in the Obama Administrations Energy Plan is to implement an economy-wide cape-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050.  As of right now these policies are just part of a plan and it will be interesting to see how effective they can become in such a weak economy. This plan would downgrade the effectiveness of all oil/gas companies, Valero (VLO) and Exxon (XOM).  However, it is still a ways away so expect great continued earnings from these companies in the meantime.  Obama should stimulate great interest in Clean Technology worldwide and could have America leading the revolution and becoming the Saudi Arabia of Clean Energy.