Add another name to the ever-growing list of environmental hypocrites: that of Barack Obama.
The president celebrated the annual Earth Day festivities by jetting aboard Air Force One from Washington to Des Moines, Iowa, and from there he choppered over to the town of Newton — delivering remarks at a plant that manufactures wind-turbine towers.
There, he called for “a new era of energy exploration in America” (except for offshore oil drilling, no doubt).
Now, Obama could have given this speech at the White House — except that the background visuals probably wouldn’t have been so, well, visual.
And a trip to the nation’s heartland is good for one or two political points.
Naturally, the question arises: Just how much energy was wasted on the trip?
CBS correspondent Mark Knoller wanted to find out, so he asked the folks at Andrews AFB about the fuel consumption of Air Force One and Marine One, respectively. But the White House press office wasn’t keen on that.
So Knoller got the answers from Boeing and the manufacturer of the VH-3D helicopter that carried the president in Iowa.
The sum total: at least 9,116 gallons of fuel — enough to power a Boeing 767 from New York to Los Angeles.
That’s not very green, is it?