Ravenstahl and Onorato are the latest Pa. elected officials in her camp. She also spoke on energy.

By Larry Eichel

Inquirer Senior Writer

PITTSBURGH - In her first trip of the campaign to southwestern Pennsylvania, Hillary Rodham Clinton picked up endorsements yesterday from the region's two top elected officials and attacked both Barack Obama and John McCain on energy.

The endorsements - from Pittsburgh's young mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, and Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, - were delivered at a loud, early-evening rally also attended by Gov. Rendell.

"Who says young people aren't allowed to be for Hillary Clinton?" asked Ravenstahl who, at age 28, is the nation's youngest big-city mayor.

Later, when she was talking about her education plan and asked how many in the crowd still had college loans to pay off, Ravenstahl raised his hand, much to the delight of the 2,000 supporters gathered at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall.

Clinton criticized her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination and the Republican nominee-in-waiting during a news conference at a Pittsburgh gas station and again at the rally.

Speaking to the crowd, Clinton said that both Obama and McCain talked a lot about taking on special interests and a lot about energy.

"But when it came time to vote for the 2005 energy bill written by Dick Cheney, Sen. Obama voted 'yes' for more giveaways to the oil companies, and I voted 'no,' " she said. "And now Sen. McCain has gone one step further: He wants to give billions of dollars more in tax subsidies to the oil companies.

"So if you believe it is time to have an American president who will take on the oil companies and stand up against the oil-producing countries, then I hope you will support me in the primaries on April 22."

An Obama spokesman responded by saying that the 2005 energy bill did a number of good things, such as raising taxes on oil companies and making a significant investment in renewable energy.

And he noted that Clinton, unlike Obama, had received $276,150 from oil and gas companies during the 2008 campaign through January, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

"Hillary Clinton should start telling the voters of Pennsylvania the truth about Barack Obama's record and her own," said the spokesman, Bill Burton.

Obama had no scheduled campaign events yesterday.

Earlier, Clinton had stopped in the city's Bloomville section for her energy-related meeting with reporters, held in the service bay of a gas station.

After meeting with the station's owner and a woman who recounted the impact of rising gas prices on her life, Clinton discussed her own ideas on energy. She said that the average Pennsylvanian spends $2,000 more per year than in 2001, when President Bush took office, as the result of higher energy prices.

"We have to move toward energy independence in order to have control over our own destiny and to get prices down," she said.

Clinton said she would use $150 billion in targeted federal investments to encourage the shift to alternative energy sources and would increase fuel-economy standards to 55 miles per gallon by 2030. Obama has made similar proposals.

Those moves would have little impact in the short run. To move the market now, Clinton said that the government should stop putting oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve - and should consider releasing some of what is already there.

At the gas station, Clinton also belittled Bush's recent, unsuccessful attempt to get the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase production.

"I will not be a president who holds hands with the Saudis," she said. "I will hold the Saudis accountable."

Ravenstahl and Onorato, who backed Clinton yesterday, are not superdelegates. But they likely will be among the at-large pledged delegates whom Clinton is certain to win in the primary.

Their endorsements add to the sense that Clinton has the support of the bulk of the state's Democratic political establishment.

The state's most prominent uncommitted Democratic politician is Sen. Bob Casey.

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