Man donates $30K in retirement savings to speak to Obama about EVs; gets bumped off guest list [View all]

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In two parts:

Man spends retirement savings to speak with Obama about EVs

"To show their plug-in passion, some people spend upwards of $30,000 on an electric car. Others – well, one, that we know of – will spend that much just to tell the leader of the free world how cool EVs are, in 180 seconds or less.

That man is our friend Paul Scott, who's no stranger to EV advocacy. A co-founder of Plug In America and currently a Nissan Leaf salesman, Scott has been involved with electric vehicles since the EV1 days that were documented in the film Who Killed The Electric Car (pictured). He announced today, independent of his job and association with PIA, that he will spend $32,400 to attend a fund raiser for President Barack Obama in Santa Monica next week. That pile of money – which is "a large percentage" of his retirement savings – will get him two-to-three minutes of the President's attention, Scott said."

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/05/31/man-spends-life-savings-to-speak-with-obama-about-evs/

EV advocate Paul Scott off Obama guest list following public outcry

"People like to criticize US politics. People like to speak poorly about President Barack Obama. There are a lot of electric vehicle haters out there. Put those three issues into the Internet blender and it's no surprise when they blow up. That's what happened with the recent story about long-time EV advocate Paul Scott spending $32,400 of his retirement savings to attend an Obama fundraiser and thereby get a chance to talk to the President about the benefits of electric vehicles.

In fact, the story got so much attention that the Democratic National Committee has now apparently disinvited Scott and returned his check. Even though Scott – a Nissan Leaf salesman, a co-founder of Plug In America and a friend of the site – took the action independent of his job and his PIA association, the public discussion of "pay for access" apparently mucked things up but good. We've asked Scott for his thoughts on the matter, but have not yet heard back. He did tell Mother Nature Network that, "I'm not in good health, and I don't know how much longer I'll live. This seemed like a good way to spend my money, to push the economic benefits of electric cars for our nation. My thought is that the average American pays this kind of money, over time, to the oil companies. We pay out $700 billion a year to Big Oil, and spend $80 billion a year protecting the oil supply." It's a discussing worth having, $32,400 or no. You can read Scott's original message to the President here."

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/06/06/ev-advocate-paul-scott-off-the-obama-guest-list-following-public/