Automobiles

Several more big companies including Best Buy and Pacific Gas and Electric are joining a year-old Energy Department program that helps corporations make their commercial fleets more fuel-efficient and transition to alternative-technology vehicles.

The expansion of the National Clean Fleets Partnership is part of an Obama administration effort to promote energy programs that don’t require action on Capitol Hill, where energy legislation is mired in election-year political struggles.

The department announced that Best Buy, PG&E, energy tech giant Johnson Controls, and the waste management and recycling company Veolia Environmental Services are joining the partnership.

The program provides technical aid and other resources to help companies reduce gasoline and diesel use by expanding efficiency and using electric vehicles and alternative fuels.

The award comes days after GM announced it was temporarily suspending production of the vehicle.

Newt Gingrich is re-airing an ad hammering President Obama over rising gas prices in three Southern states with upcoming primaries.

The campaign announced Monday the previously-released ad would be going up on the air in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama in a signal that Gingrich sees his path to regain momentum in the GOP nomination fight is through the Southern states.

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Twenty-three senators and 45 House members urged regulators to implement limits on speculative trading in energy futures.

"If you're Mitt Romney and you're rich enough, maybe you don't get it," said Gingrich of rising gas costs.

More than half of likely voters think government should release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower rising prices.

General Motors is also temporarily laying off 1,300 workers; says production of the electric car will resume on April 23.

Ann Romney fired back at Bill Clinton on Friday for claiming that Mitt Romney’s father would be “rolling over in his grave” at his son’s position on the auto bailouts. 

President Obama is the top target of blame for rising prices, but views on the matter are highly fragmented.

The former president rejected the idea that Obama had bailed out the auto industry as a favor to the UAW.