Today, President-elect Barack Obama announced key members of his energy and environment team, including Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy; Lisa Jackson, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator; Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ); Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change; and Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change.

I believe that Obama's inspirational leadership, contemplative nature and well-reasoned, forward-looking policies offer our troubled nation a real opportunity to face and overcome its many challenges at home and abroad.

On an array of domestic issues, including health care, education, tax policy, the environment and alternative energy sources, Obama promises a clean break from the recent past and tangible hope for a return to fiscal responsibility, economic security and true environmental stewardship, all of which are essential to restoring our greatness. Now, Obama must be aware of the hopes that he has raised through his discussion of these issues. Many people will rightly take his words as his commitment and will judge him accordingly.

On the international front, his thoughtful and responsible approach to extricating our troops from Iraq, reallocating our finite resources elsewhere in the war on terrorism, and reviving effective use of our diplomatic corps all warrant our support. To be successful in these endeavors, Obama must be an active student of history. In attempting to bring peace to the Middle East, for example, he should recognize that the United States has played a role in the region since Franklin Roosevelt went to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Abdul-Aziz. Obama must appreciate that he is not writing on an empty page and will need to be sensitive to that which has come before him.

Obama represents the better choice to successfully address the issues that dramatically affect the health and well-being of our nation today. The fact that he is also a black American adds special significance for me as someone who was witness to and participated in at least a part of the past century's discourse on civil rights.

Mathias served in the House of Representatives from 1961 until 1969 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate and served until 1987.

MCCAIN: You’ll have to tell me what’s changed. I love it when they say, “Oh McCain has changed.” And I say, “What have I changed on?” They can’t name a single issue or they’ll name an issue and its false. I’m the same guy. I’m proud of our campaign.

It is not exactly a winning message but the interview presented itself with a rather easy challenge: name McCain's flip-flops.

Think Progress identified 44 of them.

Campaigning for Obama, Sen. Clinton tells Philly Jewish Community Center crowd that “the middle class is invisible to this president.” She adds: “we are in a financial crisis born and bred in the last eight years of failed policies of George Bush and John McCain.”

Later on, at historic farm in Horsham, she offers Democrats’ response to Republicans’ “Drill, baby, drill”: “Jobs, baby, jobs.”

But Americans are already losing -- their jobs, their homes and their life savings -- and John McCain doesn't want to talk about that. He would rather lose his integrity than lose an election, and will launch more dishonest attack ads about Senator Barack Obama.

In his convention speech last August, Senator Obama said, "this isn't about me. It's about you."

That's what this election is all about -- you -- and John McCain, who is out of ideas, out of touch and running out of time, is desperately trying to change the subject.

It will not work.

McCain, talking about energy policy, stresses the importance of "ensuring that America is secure, and not dependent on oil from people like Hugo Chavez or other parts of the Middle East which is, we know, could be destabilized under certain sets of circumstances." [emphasis added]

Wars were funded by, impossible without, and usually fought over oil. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nazi invasion of Russia, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and countless other conflicts have been based in whole or in part on the world’s addiction to oil. Even today, dictators and authoritarians from Venezuela to Russia, from Sudan to North Korea, base their actions—and their power to oppress their citizens and threaten their neighbors—solely on access to or sale of oil on the world market.

Since the turn of the new century, those hard facts have come home to America in the most vicious way. Attacked at home by oil-funded terrorists, at war abroad with oil-funded insurgents, threatened in global markets and faced with acquisition of our industrial base by oil-funded multinationals, we must defend America or face her utter destruction.

If we continue to follow this slippery, oil-slicked, downward-winding path, our citizens will shiver in darkness as our resources hemorrhage to Third World thugs whose only virtue is their control of petroleum-based energy.

These threats are real, they are immediate, and they are potentially overwhelming. And the saddest part, the most terrible irony, is that we finance them every time we pump gas or pay utility bills.

The threats are not new, nor is their solution. President Carter warned us about it in the 1970s when he proposed real solutions—conservation, fuel efficiency, and alternative fuels—to what he correctly named the “moral equivalent of war.” His proposals were ridiculed by Republicans who forgot that both Presidents Nixon and Ford had joined him in calling for America’s energy independence.

That bipartisanship, however, became partisan as this nation entered an era of oil industry dominance when, for the 28 years since 1980 except for the Clinton presidency, former oil industry executives have been president or vice president of the United States and indeed, for the past eight years, have filled both offices at once.

For the past eight years, the man in the Oval Office has tipped his hat over his eyes, kicked back his chair, and snoozed at his desk. Charged with protecting our national interests, he slept on duty while his vice president conspired with oil industry cronies. Tasked with cutting off funding to terrorists, he slept on duty while oil shortages worsened, oil prices soared, and dollars by the ton were delivered to terrorists’ banks in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Faced with a new kind of war, this president and his vice president helped their friends the old-fashioned way:

through war profiteering, tax cuts for billionaires, and in many cases out-and-out corruption.

There are honest answers to the problems we face, but they call for hard solutions and common sacrifices, the kind of sacrifices that this administration has only asked the American people to bear when it lined the pockets of the obscenely rich.

There’s an answer, but only if someone will speak truth to power.

There’s an answer, but only if someone will unite Americans to share common burdens to reach common goals.

There’s an answer, but only if someone has the values, the virtues, and the vision to lead us through these troubled waters to that beckoning shore.

There’s an answer. There’s a man. Barack Obama.

Barack Obama is unique. So are we all. Each of us brings to the world our own strengths and weaknesses.

What qualities then, have earned him our support for the highest executive office? Even his opponents agree Senator Obama is smart and thoughtful. His biography proves he’s committed to basic American values like hard work and fair play, and that he is honest and forthright. He articulates a vision of energy independence that is comprehensive and based on sound science and sound policies, science we know will work.

These policies include the answers we discussed at our energy summit in Las Vegas last week: wind, geothermal, and solar power generation and the development of efficient power transmission. Even more importantly, they include conservation measures ignored and indeed ridiculed by the current administration: smarter vehicles, more efficient and accessible mass transit, energy-effective building codes, and retrofitting all have their place in Senator Obama’s vision of an energy-smart America.

But John McCain has a vision too, which in fairness I must address.

When doctors screen out the quack nostrums and phony remedies we call snake oil, they use two fundamental principles: the maxim “first, do no harm” and the question “is it safe and effective?”

In Congress, as in medicine, when we are offered snake oil as a remedy for the nation’s energy ills, our question should be: “Is it safe and effective? Does it do more harm than good?”

Senator McCain and the Republicans have centered their answer to our vital energy needs on one solution: off-shore drilling. Senator McCain calls for it in every speech; his party has demagogued the issue in both houses of Congress.

So, is off-shore drilling energy policy or snake oil? Let’s review the facts. White House analysts, congressional analysts, and the oil industry all agree that off-shore drilling won’t add one drop to our energy pool for at least ten years. The way things are going now, in another ten years we won’t need more oil; nobody will be able to afford it.

T. Boone Pickens said it right: “We can’t drill our way out of this crisis.”

But even if Doc McCain’s magic off-shore oil elixir won’t work, will it do any harm?

The answer is, we just don’t know, and neither does he. It might not ruin tourism in the Gulf or on the California coast. It might not destroy vital fisheries. It might not pollute our waterways.

Nobody really knows. But kindly old Doc McCain would like to sell it to you anyway.

The simple fact is that the promise of more oil isn’t part of the solution; it’s part of the problem. At best this is an 18th century answer to a 21st century crisis; at worst it’s pure baloney.

There are no quick and easy answers here, folks. For over a quarter of a century, the Republicans have sold their magic beans with a promise of a giant beanstalk and gold over the horizon. Look what they’ve done to our country. Look what they’ve done to our planet.

It is time to bring our nation back to reality. It is time for an energy policy that recognizes national security means ending dependence on oil and that the future is about new ideas and change for the better, not snake oil and quackery.

It is time for recognition that threats to our planet are threats to our great country.

It is time to understand that in the long run, indeed in the short run, we must wean ourselves of addiction to oil.

It is time, my friends, to elect Barack Obama as President of the United States.

Shelley, a single mother from Tennessee, writes, “I’m having to cut down on food just to cover gas prices. I had to figure out a way to even buy my daughter school clothes this year.” That’s a choice that no mother should be forced to make.

It’s time to stop sending our money to foreign countries to buy oil when we have all the sun and wind we need right here at home. Barack Obama will lead the transition to home-grown renewable fuels that will lower gas prices and create good-paying, green jobs. Big oil and John McCain want more of the same. Working-class mothers like Shelley can’t afford more of the same.

No podemos seguir con lo mismo! Necesitamos un cambio!

When I ran for governor of Montana, I had never before held elected office. I chose a Republican, John Bohlinger, to be my lieutenant governor, with the simple proposition that we could get more done working together than we could fighting. Because Montana really isn’t a red state or a blue state. As Senator Obama might put it, we’re a united state.

And so in three-and-a-half years, working together—Republicans and Democrats in Montana—we have cut more taxes for more Montanans than any time in history, increased energy production at the fastest rate in the history of Montana, invested more new money in education than ever before and we created the largest budget surplus in the history of Montana. That’s the kind of change we brought to Montana, and that’s the kind of change President Barack Obama is going to bring to America.

Like Senator Obama, my family has roots in the Great Plains. My grandparents were immigrants who came to Montana with nothing more than the clothes on their back, high hopes and faith in God. My family didn’t have much in our little house. But a few things stand out in my memory: a crucifix and, on our kitchen wall, a framed picture of President Kennedy. My parents never even graduated from high school, but President Kennedy’s idealism and spirit of possibility inspired them to send all six of us children to college. And when he said, “we’re going to the moon,” he showed us that no challenge was insurmountable.

A generation later, we face a great new challenge, a world energy crisis that threatens our economy, our security, our climate and our way of life. And until we address that energy crisis, our problems will only get worse. For eight long years, the White House has led us in the wrong direction. And now Senator McCain wants four more years of the same.

Can we afford four more years? Is it time for a change? When do we need it? And who do we need as the next President of the United States of America? That’s right. Barack Obama is the change we need!

Right now, the United States imports about 70 percent of its oil from overseas. At the same time, billions of dollars that we spend on all that foreign oil seems to end up in the bank accounts of those around the world who are openly hostile to American values and our way of life. This costly reliance on fossil fuels threatens America and the world in other ways, too. CO2 emissions are increasing global temperatures, sea levels are rising and storms are getting worse.

We need to break America’s addiction to foreign oil. We need a new energy system that is clean, green and American-made. And we need a president who can marshal our nation’s resources, get the job done and deliver the change we need.

That leader is Barack Obama. Barack Obama knows there’s no single platform for energy independence. It’s not a question of either wind or clean coal, solar or hydrogen, oil or geothermal. We need them all to create a strong American energy system, a system built on American innovation.

After eight years of a White House waiting hand and foot on big oil, John McCain offers more of the same. At a time of skyrocketing fuel prices, when American families are struggling to keep their gas tanks full, John McCain voted 25 times against renewable and alternative energy. Against clean biofuels. Against solar power. Against wind energy.

This not only hurts America’s energy independence, it could cost American families more than a hundred thousand jobs. At a time when America should be working harder than ever to develop new, clean sources, John McCain wants more of the same and has taken more than a million dollars in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry. Now he wants to give the oil companies another 4 billion dollars in tax breaks. Four billion in tax breaks for big oil?

That’s a lot of change, but it’s not the change we need.

In Montana, we’re investing in wind farms and we’re drilling in the Bakken formation, one of the most promising oil fields in America. We’re pursuing coal gasification with carbon sequestration and we’re promoting greater energy efficiency in homes and offices.

Even leaders in the oil industry know that Senator McCain has it wrong. We simply can’t drill our way to energy independence, even if you drilled in all of John McCain’s backyards, including the ones he can’t even remember.

That single-answer proposition is a dry well, and here’s why. America consumes 25 percent of the world’s oil, but has less than 3 percent of the reserves. You don’t need a $2 calculator to figure that one out. There just isn’t enough oil in America, on land or offshore, to meet America’s full energy needs.

Barack Obama understands the most important barrel of oil is the one you don’t use. Barack Obama’s energy strategy taps all sources and all possibilities. It will give you a tax credit if you buy a fuel-efficient car or truck, increase fuel-efficiency standards and put a million plug-in hybrids on the road.

Invest $150 billion over the next 10 years in clean, renewable energy technology. This will create up to 5 million new, green jobs and fuel long-term growth and prosperity. Senator Obama’s plan will also invest in a modern transmission grid to deliver this new, clean electricity from wind turbines and solar panels to homes, offices and the batteries in America’s new plug-in hybrid cars.

But today I have traveled from my home in New Hampshire to declare myself a proud member of the Democratic Party and to endorse Barack Obama for President of the United States. Why? Because the Republican Party I once knew has become something different, something I no longer recognize. The “Grand Old Party” is no longer grand. It’s just old. The same old, failed policies. The same, old Washington culture.

Instead of new ideas and innovation, they offer trillion-dollar tax breaks for the very rich at the expense of the middle class, a deficit out of control and a government unable to help its most vulnerable citizens after Hurricane Katrina. Instead of inspiring the world with the power of American ideals, they offer war as a first resort, an overstretched military, justification for torture and trampling of civil liberties.

From the invasion of Iraq to the devastation of Katrina, I see arrogance abroad and incompetence at home. And I simply cannot tolerate, and America simply can’t afford, more of the same. Any other time, I might have given up on politics, convinced that nothing would ever change. But this year, a new leader offers the change we need.

Barack Obama’s ideas and ideals are not tired and old. They are rooted in the timeless values that define our great nation: unity, optimism, faith. He is a leader who challenges us to put aside old divisions of party and region and race and unite around a common purpose. A leader who will replace the old politics of special-interest influence with fiscal responsibility and shared prosperity, including freedom from the tyranny of foreign oil.

A leader who as commander-in-chief will keep our military strong, stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, start bringing our troops home responsibly, and win the war against those who attacked us on 9/11.

As an old Navy veteran, I know change isn’t always easy. But sometimes it’s necessary. And this is such a time. In Barack Obama I see judgment, character, courage, and principle over politics and partisanship. In Barack Obama, I see the change America needs.

When I became mayor of Denver in 1983, everyone knew we had a serious problem with air pollution. On a bad day, you could barely see our magnificent mountains. Some people said we couldn’t fix it. Our economy was in a recession, and we were struggling with the shock of an energy crisis. Sound familiar? But we knew we couldn’t afford more of the same and we made a decision to change.

We started using cleaner fuels. We invested in mass transit. Everyone chipped in and did their part. And a funny thing happened. Our city got cleaner and our economy started to grow. We took our future into our own hands. We built a new airport for the new century.

Today new energy companies are coming to Colorado and building wind turbines and solar plants. We’re creating more and more engineering and manufacturing jobs and paying good wages. But we meet here today in the shadow of a greater challenge, a challenge that goes far beyond Colorado.

Today, our nation faces yet another energy crisis. Every day, Americans all across our land are wondering how they can afford to pay for the gasoline they need to get to their jobs, how they can afford to pay their light bills, their heating and cooling bills. They wonder if there will be anything left for a college education, for a medical emergency or for their retirement. And they wonder: how did this happen?

Our addiction to oil, our dependence on imports and our greenhouse gas pollution are all getting worse every year. America is on a liquid leash, a leash that’s choking our paychecks and the prosperity of our nation. For eight years now, President Bush and Dick Cheney have rubber- stamped an energy policy written by big oil companies and their lobbyists in Washington.

And what does John McCain want to do now? The same old things that keep on failing: more of the same tax breaks for big oil companies making record profits. More of the same roadblocks in front of fuel-efficient vehicles. More of the same refusal to support advanced, renewable energy. Americans who had to pay $4 dollars a gallon for gas this summer know we can’t afford more of the same.

Barack Obama will bring the change we need. To reduce our dependence on foreign oil, to increase our use of home-grown clean fuels, to create 5 million new green-collar jobs. He’ll invest $150 billion over 10 years to build new energy technologies here at home and then export them around the world. He’ll raise mileage standards so our cars can go farther on less gas. He’ll help American industry retool to build the cars of the future and give tax credits to Americans to buy them.

These aren’t just dreams. This is America’s future: taking back our own energy destiny. Putting the best minds of our great universities and research centers to work—just as we did when John Kennedy, a Democratic president, committed us to putting a man on the moon. American energy, American technology, American jobs, ready to be created, right now. That’s the change we need.

And to those who doubt we can solve our energy problems and create new American jobs and economic growth at the same time, I say: come to Denver. Come to states like Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Colorado, all being transformed by Democratic governors building new green economies.

So tonight, I ask each of you, as well as Americans across our great land, to believe that we can wean ourselves off foreign oil. We can create millions of jobs in green industries. We can develop our own energy sources. With Barack Obama as our president, a president who has challenged us to believe in ourselves, we will get the change we need, we will transform our future, and power this country for generations to come.

I graduated college 32 years ago when the entire nation was focused on “the energy crisis.” Three decades have passed, and where are we now? The costs of filling up our tanks or cooling our homes are going through the roof. Our climate is warming. And our reliance on foreign oil has never been greater. Here we are again back in yet another energy crisis.

I can tell you that there are thousands of entrepreneurs, from Portland, Oregon to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with new solutions. Investors are lining up to back them. What’s missing is leadership from Washington. We can’t afford another 30 years of partisanship and inaction. We need new thinking and new leadership. We need Barack Obama as president of the United States.

What’s at stake is not just our national security. Not just the future of our planet. What’s at stake is whether or not the United States will lead the creation of an industry of historic proportions that will create millions of new, high-paying jobs.

Let me put it this way. Green technology is where the computer industry was in 1984, the year the Macintosh computer was introduced. Think about how far we’ve come since then. That’s how far-reaching and how transformational green technology will be. Thousands of new companies. Millions of new jobs. In fact, investments in wind and solar technologies have already created 2.4 million jobs.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that less than 10 percent of them are here in the United States. That’s because other countries have smart, stable, forward-looking energy policies. So American companies that are working on wind, solar and the next generation of biofuels are selling, and now manufacturing, their products in places like Germany, Spain and China. That’s lost jobs here at home. And the loss of one of the biggest economic opportunities to ever come our way.

It’s time for a change. Barack Obama has a comprehensive energy plan that will get us off of foreign oil, stop global warming, and create millions of new jobs in the United States. I’ve read it, and you should read it too at www.barackobama.com. And what you will see is that Barack Obama is not proposing the same old, tired answers. He’s offering the change we so urgently need.

He will cut taxes for families who buy fuel-efficient cars and trucks, and make sure that those cars are being built by American autoworkers. He will make an unprecedented investment in green technologies, and that will create 5 million new jobs over the next decade.

I know, to some, it may sound a little pie-in-the-sky. But I’m sure a lot of people said that about the home computer and the internet. The truth is: America can do it. With the right leadership, we can seize this moment. And with Barack Obama as president, we can set our economy on a course for growth and widespread prosperity.

Thank you.

After I got my first union job, my dad gave me some good advice. He said, “Stick to the union. It’s what makes a difference for working people like us.” Unions are the best all-in-one program for working families that America ever had—and it didn’t cost the government a dime.

My dad was right. Unions help ordinary people like me, like truck drivers. Nurses. And farm, factory and construction workers, who work hard to find a way to own a home. Raise a family. Send our kids to college and retire with dignity.

Our unions helped us pass on to our kids a better life than our own. And we call this legacy the American dream. But today, that dream is fading. After eight years of George W. Bush, work hours are up but wages are down. And John McCain is offering more of the same. The gap between the rich and the rest of America—it’s staggering and growing. And John McCain is offering more of the same. Nine in 10 workers have no union, while healthcare costs are exploding, pensions wiped out. Job security, a thing of the past.

Working people in this country can’t afford more of the same. But that’s exactly what John McCain’s offering—more of the same. Brothers and sisters, it is time for change, and I stand here today to tell you that working people all around this country know—Barack Obama will bring the change we need.

Barack Obama believes in an America where workers have a voice on the job and their hard work is valued and rewarded. Where health care is affordable and accessible. Where corporations pay their fair share, and workers are free to join a union without being harassed or intimidated.

Barack Obama believes in an America in which we work with each other, take care of each other and where our kids do even better than we do. Barack Obama will bring the change we need. And when he is our president, working families around this country will again know that the American dream is within the reach of everyone who calls this great country home.

The results of the Republican energy policy are plain. Back then, the price of gas at the pump was about $1.50 a gallon. Today, it’s $4 a gallon. Back then, it cost about $900 to heat your home through the winter. This winter, it’s more likely to be $2,500. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil just announced the largest quarterly profit in history. That’s not just an outrage. It’s obscene.

This happened because for the last eight years, the Bush-Cheney team stonewalled the taxing of oil company profits and prevented efforts to promote alternative energy production. And guess who voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time? Senator John McCain.

Now, as another Republican convention approaches, we are hearing more of the same: John McCain talking about alternative energy, energy independence and wind power. But if you look past the speeches, here’s what you see. Many of John McCain’s top advisors have worked as lobbyists for oil and gas companies. I guess that explains why he wants to give $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies.

And if you look past the speeches to his record, it’s clear: John McCain has never believed in renewable energy and he won’t make it part of America’s future. For all his talk, here’s the truth: John McCain voted against establishing a national renewable energy standard. He voted against tax incentives for renewable energy companies. And for all his talk of drilling, he refused to endorse a bipartisan effort to expand domestic oil production because that bipartisan proposal would end tax breaks for big oil.

It’s clear: the only thing green in John McCain’s energy plan is the billions of dollars he’s promising in tax cuts for oil companies. And the only thing he’ll recycle is the same failed Bush approach to energy policy. We can’t afford more of the same. We need a strategy that puts America on a path to end the age of oil once and for all.

Pennsylvania knows something about energy leadership. Back in 1886, there was a Pennsylvania town that helped lead America into a new energy future when it created the nation’s first successful electrified streetcar system. It earned that town a nickname, the “electrical city.” The real name of that town is Scranton.

Today, a son of Scranton, Joe Biden, and a friend of Pennsylvania, Barack Obama, offer the change America needs to create a future free of foreign oil. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are committed to producing enough homegrown fuel to replace every drop of the oil we import from the Middle East and Venezuela in just 10 years. An Obama administration will invest $4 billion to keep America in the car-making business and give you a tax cut so you can buy a fuel-efficient car or truck. And it will commit to getting 1 million 150-mile-per-gallon cars on our roads within six years, and make sure they are built right here in America.

It will require that within four years, at least 10 percent of our nation’s electricity comes from alternative energy, and by 2025 we hit 25 percent. It will move immediately to make the renewable energy tax credit permanent and double the amount of energy that comes from renewable sources over the next four years.

It will invest $150 billion over the next decade to grow our energy supply and put 5 million Americans to work building solar and wind farms, clean coal gasification and geothermal plants, the kind of jobs that can’t be outsourced to India or China. It will bring everyone to the table—business, government and the American people—to reduce our demand for electricity 15 percent by the end of next decade. That’s the kind of change we need.

One person who understands what this can mean is a Pennsylvanian named Troy Galloway. Troy is a 44-year-old steelworker who was laid off after working for 15 years for the same company. But today, Troy is working in Pennsylvania for one of the largest wind energy companies in the world, and he’s earning as much as he earned at the steel mill. Troy’s new employer has more than 1,000 Pennsylvanians working green-collar jobs that pay well and have a future.

Why? Because in 2004, Pennsylvania set a standard which will require utilities to produce 20 percent of their electricity from clean renewable sources.

That’s the kind of change we need. That is what the future could look like with Barack Obama as president. If we can do it in Pennsylvania, we can do it in Ohio and Florida and Texas and New York and California. We can. And with Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House, we will.