In recent weeks, the oil lobby and a manufacturers trade group ignited a campaign in the Mountain West and Midwest asserting that the House legislation would be a job killer. Environmental and labor groups have countered with a "Made in America" tour to highlight the green jobs they say would be created.

President Barack Obama is still at least a year away from seeing wind turbines take root anywhere off the U.S. coast, even though his administration has promised to make offshore wind a priority, and even though developers are lining up to string wind farms up and down the Atlantic seaboard. The administration, delayed by controversy and red tape, has made "clean energy" one of its top policy pushes.

Even as Americans tell pollsters they are eager for alternatives to fossil fuel, some are fighting proposals for solar and wind projects and for the thousands of miles of transmission lines that would be needed to carry the cleaner energy to market. The protests echo grass-roots opposition that has blocked nuclear plants and energy-producing trash incinerators for decades. The new backlash is fueled by worries that renewable-energy projects would occupy vast amounts of land to produce significant amounts of power.

If the vast creosote-covered plain that is California's Mojave Desert represents to some the grand potential of America's renewable-energy future, Jim Harvey sees something else. "Their model is 'You must kill land to save land,' " said Harvey, a Web- page designer and homegrown activist who sees the Obama administration's push for green energy here as a destructive force poised to swallow his beloved desert. "How does that make any sense?"

Despite reports to the contrary, none of the $294 million in stimulus money awarded Tuesday to Spanish wind company Iberdrola Renewables will be spent in Pennsylvania, according to company officials. ...Johnson said Iberdrola applied for stimulus money using projects already completed, like Locust Ridge II, as examples. She said the federal government was looking at a company's track record of success.

The feds have awarded $502 million under a new $3 billion program that gives the cash equivalent of a 30 percent investment tax credit. The U.S. Department of Treasury has doled out $502 million under a new program to provide grants to renewable energy developers who opt for cash instead of the 30 percent investment tax credit.

As offshore wind farms in the U.S. move closer to becoming a reality, there are still questions about the potential environmental impacts and best sites for in-the-water wind turbines. Coastal resource managers in New Jersey are getting in front of this burgeoning business by conducting an environmental baseline study that will help guide wind farm development off that state's coastline.

When Congress adopted higher standards for the use of corn-based ethanol, a gold rush of ethanol plant construction in Nebraska and the Great Plains resulted. A similar decision concerning wind energy, which will soon face federal lawmakers ...Shelley Sahling-Zart, a lobbyist for the Nebraska Power Association, said utilities have varying abilities to meet such mandates. She said they should be free to pursue renewables as "they make economic sense for our customers."

The proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act, currently being debated in Congress, calls for a 17 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions below 2005 levels by 2020 and an 83 percent reduction by 2050. But even though the bill provides $75 billion in direct loans and other financial support for clean-energy projects, it is unlikely to spur much new investment in renewable energy in the near term. An earlier draft of the legislation required that 25 percent of the electricity produced by most U.S. utilities come from renewables by 2025.

With plans moving forward in New Jersey and Delaware - not to mention recent progress in Cape Wind's years-long fight in Massachusetts - it's far from certain that Deepwater and Rhode Island will succeed in their quest to be first. And make no mistake, being first is important. For the developer, it means more than just bragging rights. It gives the company a leg up on its competitors as it tries to develop additional wind farms elsewhere. For the state, it means much-needed economic development and valuable green-collar jobs.

President Barack Obama's push for wind and solar energy to wean the U.S. from foreign oil carries a hidden cost: overburdening the nation's electrical grid and increasing the threat of blackouts. The funding Obama devoted to get high-voltage lines ready for handling the additional load of alternative supplies is less than 5 percent of the $130 billion that power users, producers and the U.S. Energy Department say is needed.

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today told the American Enterprise Institute that he "challenges ... the idea that deliberately raising energy prices will somehow be good for job growth and the economy" ...instead of a clean energy policy or even a clean, renewable energy policy, what we have in practice is a national windmill policy."

Political leaders from both parties have often said Nevada is in a race with other states to attract renewable energy projects. Solar, wind and geothermal energy production represent the very future of Nevada's economy, they say. Despite the bold talk, state government has lagged behind surrounding states in applying for millions in federal stimulus dollars for renewable energy and energy conservation projects.

However, critics say Mr. Pickens' plans are more of a utopia than a promised land: desirable, eventually necessary, but too much, too soon. "This [Obama] administration told us to throw fistfuls of dollars at an inefficient energy source with no [profit] margin," said Stephen Schork, a commodities trader in Philadelphia. "And the dollars will be gone, and energy prices will go back to the stratosphere."

As Democrats pushed for the bill's narrow victory last month, some 300 pages of last-minute amendments were added, many that would make money for the constituencies of lawmakers on the fence.

As Congress prepares to tackle global warming, Americans are nervously fingering their pocketbooks. Projected cost increases associated with a proposed cap-and-trade program have ranged from $175 a household in 2020, calculated by the Congressional Budget Office, to an annual average of $2,979 in Heritage Foundation estimates.

In a lawsuit filed this week in federal court in San Francisco, the groups -- including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance -- allege agencies that mapped the 6,000 miles of energy-corridor rights of way failed to analyze renewable-source locations and numerous federal and local land-use plans.

Environmental groups claim new "energy corridors" won't extend new transmission lines to areas with the greatest potential for wind and solar energy development. ...A suit was filed by 14 environmental groups ...challenges the Bush administration's designation of 3 million acres of federal land in the West as energy corridors.

The government released guidelines Thursday for allocating stimulus money to renewable energy projects, a move expected to help kick-start an industry dragged down by the recession. The guidelines from the Treasury and Energy departments detail how developers can apply for grants to finance up to 30 percent of wind farms, solar plants, biomass facilities and other renewable energy operations.

With credit costlier and harder to come by, and oil and natural gas prices down sharply over the past year, the nation's nascent wind industry may begin to focus on smaller projects that are closer to major population centers rather than massive developments like 81-year-old Pickens envisioned, industry officials said. "You've got an industry that is kind of hanging on by its fingernails," said Denise Bode, chief executive of the American Wind Energy Association.