He didn't flip flop, his opinion is exactly the same its just that as president, he will be able to via vetos if necessary make up the cost savings. Whereas his objection the entire time was that we lowered income without lowering expenses.So, he flip-flopped? In all honesty, if he flip flopped and will honestly take that position, I can give a rats ass what his position was prior. All I want is that the good of the country, not the good of politicians seeking power for their "party", is put first. If that has to come in the form of a flip-flopping jelly-spined idiot, I'm fine with it as long as the end result is there.
If the environmental issues were soley around the global warming, then i as well am unconvinced as to how real and how pressing it is. However using that as the rallying cry to get people together and remove our dependence on middle eastern oil is worthwhile. Electric or hydrogen powered cars would be quite well worthwhile if we reduced the cost of electricity by putting new nuclear plants in place. The reason I added hydrogen is that with an abundant cheap supply of electricity from nukes it becomes feasible to set up local hydrogen stations that do their own electrolysis splitting of hydrogen from water, and then there is no additional or new distribution network needed. Hydrogen fuel cell cars could be running on the road in under 5 years if that was feasible.