Gas prices have so affected American economic and political life that it appears we are beginning to see a kind of 'green arms race' between the two presidential candidates. Granted, the green merits of some of the candidate's proposals have been dubious or downright non-existent: John McCain, for instance, wants a massive increase in nuclear power, a summer gas-tax holiday and has , and off-shore drilling, while Barack Obama is a big supporter of ethanolwaffled on "clean-coal" technology. Still, what's clear is that energy policy is a major issue in this year's election, and nothing highlights that more vividly than today's bold proposal by Senator McCain to offer a "$300 million prize for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

Read more about McCain's Battery here.