President Barack Obama defended an amendment in his economic stimulus package which would provide for $600 million to replace government vehicles with new, more energy-efficient cars. Obama said the provision would help retain jobs in the automobile industry. Obama also spoke in favor of a separate amendment which gives $2 billion for research into car batteries, but he didn’t take a stance on the “Cash for Clunkers” amendment which would pay Americans to turn in old cars for new ones. The authors of the “Cash for Clunkers” amendment took it out of consideration for the package on Thursday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) criticized the $600 million set aside for “new cars for government workers,” calling the proposal wasteful.

Obama replied in a speech at the Energy Department:

“Critics of this plan ridiculed our notion that we should use part of the money to modernize the entire fleet of federal vehicles to take advantage of state-of-the-art fuel efficiency. This is what they call pork.

You know the truth. It will not only save the government significant money over time, it will not only create manufacturing jobs for folks who are making these cars, it will set a standard for private industry to match.

When you hear these attacks deriding something of such obvious importance as this, you have to ask yourself — are these folks serious? Is it any wonder that we haven’t had a real energy policy in this country?”

Auto industry lobbyists believe the provision could be removed from the final stimulus package. The $600 million would purchase 30,000 new government vehicles, with a requirement that the new cars be at least 10% more energy-efficient than their predecessors. January’s monthly auto sales were the lowest since 1982.