If there is a group more riled up about the president’s State of the Union remarks than lobbyists, it is the energy lobby; half are outraged and the other half excited about the opportunities it may have yielded.  And almost all of the response is derived from one statement: “I’m asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re doing just fine on their own.  So instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy, let’s invest in tomorrow’s,” Obama said Tuesday.

The gasoline and oil lobby is, predictably, incensed.  American Petroleum Institute CEO Jack Gerard said the president missed an opportunity to speak about how energy development creates jobs, saying “Producing more oil and gas at home, which most Americans want, could create hundreds of thousands of jobs, reduce our deficit by billions, and enhance our energy security. Even better, the government wouldn’t have to invest a single taxpayer dollar – just give industry a green light to invest its own money.”

Conversely, advocates of clean energy are viewing his remarks as a good launching board for lobbying efforts in favor of alternative energy forms.  Josh Freed, director of the Clean Energy Program at Third Way, a progressive think tank called the president’s goal of producing 80 percent of the nation’s electricity from clean energy by 2035 “ambitious,” and he is excitedly looking to unearth the possibilities the objective creates.

Sean Garren, clean energy advocate with Environment America, a federation of state-based environmental advocacy groups is one who is leery of the president’s remarks, stating that lumping all of the forms of renewable energy into one standard bill would be difficult and would not garner support from his colleagues.