Pres. Asst. Carol Browner alongside Kit Bond

WASHINGTON — Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond has been saying he’s more than a little skeptical of green jobs and climate change.

But applauding green technology is another matter, especially if it comes from Missouri.

Even if it means sweating in blistering sun alongside Obama administration’s chief climate change advocate, Carol Browner.

The occasion today was a made-for-DC event in front of the Capitol in which four Fortune 500 companies and two utilities — one of them Kansas City Power & Light — took delivery of zero-emission, electric Smith Newton work trucks produced in Kansas City.

“We haven’t had a lot of good news about the economy recently, but here is some good news,” Bond said, remarking that the trucks “will take some of the country’s biggest gas guzzlers off the streets.”

Bond trumpeted Missouri’s leading role in green technologies, noting the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner hybrid plant and Kokam’s lithium polymer battery production in Lee’s Summit.

As assistant to the president for energy and climate change, Browner, too, is a fan of all-electric vehicles like those produced at Smith Newton.

“We didn’t always agree on things,” Browner said, referring to her dealings with Bond when she headed the Environmental Protection Agency under Bill Clinton.

But zero-emission trucks, she said, is “a real step forward not only for the people of Missouri but for the entire country.”

Speaking of plugs, she got one in for the climate change legislation that has passed the House but languishes at the moment in Bond’s Senate.

“We must put a cap on the dangerous pollutants that lead to global warming,” she said.

Then Browner and Bond shook hands with representatives from companies getting keys to their new trucks – AT&T, Coca Cola, Frito-Lay, Staples, Kansas City Power & Light and Pacific Gas and Electric.