After months of standing by as Republicans tried to gut environmental laws and discredit his clean energy initiatives, President Obama took the offensive in his State of the Union address. He blasted Republicans for their single-minded commitment to fossil fuels, argued the case for a diversified energy strategy and dared to talk about climate change, a topic he has been silent on for months.

He has little chance of persuading Congress to go along with most of his sensible proposals, including those to extend and enlarge subsidies for alternative fuels and cut subsidies for the oil industry. He is right to do as much as he can on his own, opening up more federal land to wind and solar installations and pushing the military to draw more of its energy from renewable sources.

The president has a history of making great speeches with frustratingly limited follow-through. We suspect that some of his campaign advisers — spooked by the pounding over the Solyndra bankruptcy filing and absurd Republican claims about losing tens of thousands of potential jobs from his denial of the environmentally risky Keystone XL oil pipeline — will be tempted to argue that the issue is a loser.

There is a powerful case to be made that clean energy investments that will create real jobs and keep America competitive in a $5 trillion global market for advanced energy technologies. If the president doesn’t make it, the Republicans’ defense of big coal and oil will prevail.