In Defense of Clean Energy After months of standing by as Republicans tried to gut environmental laws and discredit his clean energy initiatives, President Obama took the offensive in his State of the Union address. He blasted Republicans for their single-minded commitment to fossil fuels, argued the case for a diversified energy strategy and dared to talk about climate change, a topic he has been silent on for months. He has little chance of persuading Congress to go along with most of his sensible proposals, including those to extend and enlarge subsidies for alternative fuels and cut subsidies for the oil industry. He is right to do as much as he can on his own, opening up more federal land to wind and solar installations and pushing the military to draw more of its energy from renewable sources. The president has a history of making great speeches with frustratingly limited follow-through. We suspect that some of his campaign advisers - spooked by the pounding over the Solyndra bankruptcy filing and absurd Republican claims about losing tens of thousands of potential jobs from his denial of the environmentally risky Keystone XL oil pipeline - will be tempted to argue that the issue is a loser. There is a powerful case to be made that clean energy investments that will create real jobs and keep America competitive in a $5 trillion global market for advanced energy technologies. If the president doesn't make it, the Republicans" defense of big coal and oil will prevail. The lengthy Republican investigation into the failure of a single solar energy company, Solyndra, has already raised doubts about the value and integrity of a multibillion-dollar federal program designed to support renewable energy development. Mr. Obama had the right response: The failure of some public investments to pan out was not reason enough to abandon clean energy or "cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany." It's an argument he will have to keep making. We found particularly compelling his plain-speaking defense of regulation - and the way he implicitly linked the antiregulatory folks who brought down the banking system (and their corporate pals) with the folks fighting environmental regulations (and their corporate pals). He vowed not to "back down" from rules aimed at preventing oil spills, rules protecting children from mercury poisoning, rules guaranteeing safe food and clean water. Mr. Obama agreed that a comprehensive strategy must include fossil fuels, and he pledged to promote natural gas and open up the outer continental shelf for oil exploration - both in an environmentally safe manner. This did not placate the Republicans. After the speech, their spokesmen immediately tried to steer the conversation back to the pipeline and the failure of Solyndra. Mr. Obama has much the better of this issue - if he sticks with it.