Today, President Obama boards Air Force One and flies to Argonne National Laboratory in suburban Lemont, Illinois, to deliver a speech on weaning the nation from oil and gas.
If the flight to Chicago takes about one hour, and another hour to return, the operation of Air Force One will cost taxpayers $359,500 today. That’s enough to restore about 20 weeks of public tours of the White House.
The Chicago Sun-Times notes, “Obama was last in Chicago on Feb. 15 for a speech at the Hyde Park Academy.”
“On the road again . . . Just can’t wait to get on the road again . . .”
UPDATE: Also note that the president will be flying about 620 miles between Washington and Chicago. While the precise rate of fuel consumption of Air Force One is not revealed to the public, a 747 burns about five gallons of fuel per mile. So President Obama will burn about 6,200 gallons of jet fuel in his round trip, to deliver a speech urging “new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off oil for good.”