How do you know when an oil company spokesperson is lying? See if her lips are moving.

Last December, when Congress worked on the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Senate Democrats proposed shifting several billions of dollars in tax breaks from the oil industry to pay for an extension of tax credits for wind and solar energy development. The oil industry screamed “tax hike,” President Bush threatened a veto, and the provision was removed before the bill was passed.

Now in Colorado, Gov. Bill Ritter, champion of a new energy economy in that state, is being maligned by the oil and gas industry over an issue on the November ballot.

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At the Clinton Global Initiative, Al Gore ripped apart “clean coal,” the coal industry catch-all propaganda term for advanced coal technologies, both existing ones that reduce traditional pollutants and developmental ones, like carbon capture and sequestration. Gore was asked by Bill Clinton, “Do you believe that the current economic difficulties will make it harder or easier to pass good climate legislation?” Here’s Gore’s answer:

For the first time in all of human history, we, as a species, have to make a decision. If we make the right decision then the answer to the question you asked is, the economic crisis can provide an opportunity to make the right kind of changes.

What should we do? We should stop burning coal . . . without sequestering the CO₂. The coal and oil companies have spent in the United States alone a half a billion dollars in the first eight months of this year promoting a lie that there is such a thing as “clean coal.” Clean coal’s like healthy cigarettes — it does not exist. It could theoretically exist. The only demonstration plant was canceled. How many, how many such plants are there? Zero. How many blueprints? Zero.

Watch it:

Gore continued with a discussion of how the United States and the rest of the world should build a new, smart electricity infrastructure based on wind, solar, and geothermal power “to take the energy from the places where the sun falls and the wind blows to the places where the people live” — including a link from places like Darfur to Europe:

We are now — what we should do is make a one-off investment to switch our energy infrastructure from one that depends on fuel that is dirty, dangerous, destroying the habitability of this planet, and rising in price, to a new global energy infrastructure that is based on fuel that is free forever: the sun, and the wind, and geothermal. There’s a myth that the technology is not available. It is available. Concentrating geothermal [Ed.: He means "solar"] power is competitive today. Wind is competitive, though intermittent, today. Geothermal is competitive today. Read more

A couple of commenters here worry that Obama seemed to put energy independence on the “back burner” by suggesting his clean energy plan was the “first thing” he would cut to make room for the $700 billion bail out rescue deal. Significantly, that isn’t the message heard by at least one group of crucial voters — undecideds.

During the debate, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg ran a dial group of 45 undecided voters in St. Louis, Missouri: “These voters had an unmistakably Republican tilt, voting for President Bush by a 2-to-1 margin in 2004 and self-identifying as 33 percent Republican and 27 percent Democrat.” What did they hear?

On one of the most important issues to these voters — who will do a better job achieving energy independence — Obama … more than doubl[ed] an already impressive 20-point lead on the issue to 44 points. Obama scored some of his highest marks on our dials when talking about the need to make America energy independent. Even those who felt [Obama lost] the debate agreed in our follow-up focus groups that Obama was the more persuasive candidate on energy independence.

How is it that some seasoned clean energy folks listening to the debate came away with one message, whereas undecided voters came away with the exact opposite message? Welcome to the real world of political messaging!

Let’s look at what Obama said on clean energy during the debate. First, he made clear that a revolution in energy policies was one of his top priorities. When asked by moderator Jim Lehrer what priorities he might he have to give up as President because of the $700 billion financial rescue plan, he said:

But there’s no doubt that we’re not going to be able to do everything that I think needs to be done. There are some things that I think have to be done.

We have to have energy independence, so I’ve put forward a plan to make sure that, in 10 years’ time, we have freed ourselves from dependence on Middle Eastern oil by increasing production at home, but most importantly by starting to invest in alternative energy, solar, wind, biodiesel, making sure that we’re developing the fuel-efficient cars of the future right here in the United States, in Ohio and Michigan, instead of Japan and South Korea….

And I also think that we’re going to have to rebuild our infrastructure, which is falling behind, our roads, our bridges, but also broadband lines that reach into rural communities.

Also, making sure that we have a new electricity grid to get the alternative energy to population centers that are using them.

That is a strong, thoughtful, and unequivocal message.

Since Obama didn’t really answer the question directly — nor should he have (see below) — Lehrer asked the question again, and here is where Obama made what I would call a tactical debate mistake:

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