Yesterday I blogged on what Carol Browner’s departure could mean for green policies under the Obama administration. Environmentalists were worried that this showed a shift by the White House away from tackling climate change and towards appeasing business.

They needn’t have worried. In the president’s State of the Union Address last night, he spent a considerable amount of time stressing his commitment to clean energy, and making some important and concrete pledges at the same time.

Calling this “our Sputnik moment”, Obama said:

We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.