Obama touts 'green' energy on visit to Springs Preserve
The Las Vegas Review-Journal | June 25, 2008
By Molly Ball
Under the bleach-bright Las Vegas summer sun, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Tuesday checked out the solar panels that shade cars in the parking lot of the Springs Preserve while powering the facility. "What we are seeing here ... is that the green, renewable energy economy is not some far-off, pie-in-the-sky future," Obama said in a speech at the local nature attraction. "It is now. It's creating jobs now. It is providing cheap alternatives to $140-a-barrel oil now. And it can create millions of additional jobs, entire industries, if we act now." In his first visit to Nevada since becoming the Democrats' presumptive nominee, Obama visited Las Vegas to put forward his energy plan Tuesday morning. The energy issue has become the focal point of the candidates' recent sparring as it hits Americans in the pocketbook in the form of skyrocketing gasoline prices. Obama proposed long-term investments in renewable energy as the solution and said "green" jobs like those at the Springs Preserve could provide work to locals suffering from the construction slowdown.
