According to the Associated Press:

Aiming to clear up confusion for consumers about what various terms mean, the Federal Trade Commission has revised its guidelines for businesses that make claims about so-called “eco-friendly” products.

The proposed new version of the agency’s Green Guides was released Wednesday, with recommendations for when to use words like “degradable” and “carbon offset” in advertisements and packaging, and warnings about using certifications and seals of approval that send misleading messages.

Newsweek reports this quote from Barack Obama while he was preparing for a debate — a quote which, as an environment reporter, I absolutely love.

“I don’t consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that's green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f***ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective.’”

From an environmental perspective, what I like about this quote is that it highlights the needs to address the root problems of climate change and to come up with large-scale solutions.

From an observer’s standpoint, the quote confirms my longtime feeling that the basic format of these debates produces an outcome that’s contrived, rehearsed and insincere. The funny thing is, Jim Lehrer, who moderated the first presidential debates, feels the same way.

According to Lawrence O’Donnell, a writer for “The West Wing,” Lehrer told him that he has wanted to break with the format for a long time. O’Donnell tried to get Lehrer to appear on “The West Wing” to host a fictional presidential debate in which the candidates, played by Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits, would completely break with the usual format and engage with each other — ie., have a real debate.

While Lehrer couldn’t appear on the show because of a PBS rule that he wrote, he reportedly wanted to emulate the fictional debate, asking debate commissioners to watch tapes of the show to get some pointers. That’s why Lehrer tried to get Obama and Sen. John McCain to actually talk to each other.

O’Donnell talked about all this in commentary on MSNBC here.

In my reporting for the story, I came across a group called the Energy Action Coalition, which has run a nonpartisan campaign called “Power Vote” this election season. The campaign’s purpose is to galvanize young people to persuade other young people to vote for candidates or ballot referendums that promote clean energy, the creation of more green jobs and efforts to control climate change.

So far, Power Vote says it has secured commitments from 300,000 young people to vote this way.

Missouri, California and Colorado all have ballot initiatives dealing with clean energy. Missouri’s initiative calls for 15 percent of the state’s electricity to come from clean energy by 2021. California’s ballot measure, Proposition 7, requires the state’s utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2010. (The proposition has stirred up controversy because many environmentalists oppose it because they consider its wording confusing and worry that it could backfire and retard renewable-energy growth.) And Colorado’s initiative, supported by Gov. Bill Ritter, seeks to end $300 million in tax subsidies for oil and gas companies and use that money for clean-energy projects and college scholarships.

More detailed accounts of these initiatives can be found here.

As I’ll discuss in today’s piece, voters age 18 to 30 view the environment as a higher priority than older voters. If young people turn out in big numbers tomorrow, they could help move energy and environmental issues to center stage.

But a new economic study released today crunches some numbers and finds that environmental and economic interests are often aligned.

In California, government policies promoting energy efficiency created about 1.5 million jobs and saved consumers about $56 billion in energy costs from 1977 to 2007, says economist David Roland-Holst of the UC Berkeley Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability, who conducted the study.

California was way ahead of most states in embracing energy-efficiency policies. These policies, adopted as early as 1978, have stimulated certain sectors of the state’s economy, according to the study.

Specifically, from 1977 to 2007, employee compensation in the state’s service sector increased by $17.8 billion,  in wholesale and retail trade by $11.2 billion, in the financial and insurance sectors by $7.3 billion and in the light industrial sector by $1.2 billion — all because of the energy efficiency policies. Workers in the electric power industry were the exception — their compensation dropped by $1.6 billion.

When there’s less demand for electricity because of greater efficiencies, the study explains, consumers have more money to spend on other things and employers respond to the increased demand by creating more jobs.

Then there are the environmental of curbing climate change and reducing our dependency on foreign oil, which power generating plants. As Roland-Host told the AP, “If the country can follow California’s example, it will have a dramatic effect on our future emissions and energy independence.”

Overall, says the group’s president Gene Karpinski in a press release, “in 2008, Congress went in the wrong direction” — that is, away from reducing our country’s dependence on oil.

This year’s scorecard looks at 11 Senate votes and 13 House votes related to energy and environmental policies. Sixty-seven members of the House received a perfect rating, while 27 senators received a comparable score.  Some 70 members of the House and two senators received a zero rating.

The press release mentions “a vocal minority” in Congress, “led by Minority Leaders Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and John Boehner (R-Oh), [who] used every trick in the book to help their allies in Big Oil and Big Coal.” The League of Conservation Voters says this vocal minority has led to billions of dollars in tax subsidies for oil companies.

Meanwhile, the league praised other Republicans, including Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), for introducing and supporting legislation to fight climate change and improve the environment and public health.

View the complete scorecard.

But green business owners know that they face obstacles. This week, E&ETV looked at some of them in an interview with Natural Resources and Defense Council energy analyst Jim Presswood.

E&ETV’s Monica Trauzzi asked how the financial crisis will affect solar and wind industries. Although some businesses could feel the credit pinch as banks continue to struggle, Presswood said he thinks the rapidly growing solar and wind industries could help pull the economy out of its doldrums, especially as Americans look for alternatives to fossil fuels. The extension of the tax credits means that private investment will still be attracted to clean energy, Pressman added.

Trauzzi also asked how a Democratic-controlled Congress could battle over tax credits for solar and wind power for almost two years yet move quickly to lift a 30-year-old ban on offshore oil drilling.

I expected Presswood to say that the Democrats are a bunch of weanies. Instead, he talked about some of the legislative politics at play — with fights between the Senate and House, Democrats and Republicans and members trying to please commercial interests, including oil and gas companies.

Ultimately, the political game-playing resulted in the lifting of the ban on offshore drilling becoming “must-pass legislation” and the renewable-energy tax credits becoming “a vigorous game of ping pong.”

Presswood believes that alternative energy will receive even more attention in 2009 under a new president, and with that knowledge, green companies can more comfortably focus on growing.

The DNC Committee hired a “director of greening,” Andrea Robinson, to cut down on waste, track and offset carbon emissions and promote local food.

Many attending the convention are looking for this kind of action on a larger scale. Americans waiting for comprehensive energy solutions hope Sen. Obama will address their concerns in his speech this week — and then by actually taking some action…whether he wins the presidency or continues his work in the Senate.