Obama:  Shift $4 billion

from Oil to Alt Fuels

For the second time in a week, President Obama visited an audience of UAW members to talk about fuel economy and the future of America’s transportation industry.

Last week, on the day of a contested Republican primary in Michigan, the president paid a call to delegates to the union’s legislative conference in Washington, where he tweaked his GOP opponents about their opposition to the auto recovery package.

"Trucks That Work", from the Nat'l Wildlife Federation, outlines fuel savings and reduction in carbon pollution as a result of new federal standards.

Yesterday, Obama was at a Freightliner Truck plant in Mt. Holly, North Carolina, where workers chose to become members of the UAW during a contested organizing campaign back in 1990.

Freightliner – a unit of German-based automaker Daimler — is now producing trucks fueled by natural gas, which run cleaner, more efficiently – and less expensively – than typical diesel trucks.  The Mt. Holly plant, the president noted, recently sold its 1,000^th natural gas truck – and has recently added back 1,000 workers who were laid off during the recession.

Obama tweaked his Republican rivals again yesterday, this time casting doubt on calls for a quick fix to bring down energy prices.  “The next time you hear some politician trotting out some 3-point plan for $2 gas,” he said, “you let them know, we know better.”

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