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Obama: 'No Silver Bullet' To Fix Energy Needs, But U.S. Can Lead the Way
April 22, 2009 3:44 PM
ABC News' Karen Travers, Sunlen Miller and John Hendren report:
Marking Earth Day in Newton, Iowa, President Obama said there are no “silver bullets” or “magic energy sources” that can immediately reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign oil or its energy needs, but the nation can lead the way in developing new technologies for a 21st century clean energy economy.
“On this Earth Day, it is time for us to lay a new foundation for economic growth by beginning a new era of energy exploration in America,” Obama said at Trinity Structural Towers, a former Maytag appliance factory that now produces towers for wind energy production.
Obama linked the nation’s energy security to its economic security, but added that it is not a choice between one or the other.
“The choice we face is between prosperity and decline,” he said. “The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.”
Obama announced a new program to develop renewable energy projects on the Outer Continental Shelf that will produce electricity from wind, wave and ocean currents. He said this will lead to major investments in offshore clean energy and allow projects to move forward in places like New Jersey and Delaware.
Obama said that if fully pursued, wind energy projects could generate as much as 20 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030 and create 250,000 jobs. “As with so many clean energy investments, it’s win-win: good for environment and great for our economy,” he said.
The president also pushed for a cap-and-trade program. “By closing the carbon loophole through this kind of market-based cap, we can address in a systematic way all the facets of the energy crisis: lowering our dependence on foreign oil, reducing our use of fossil fuels, and promoting new industries right here in America,” he said.
The president came to Trinity Structural Towers to highlight how industries and companies can transition to a green, 21st economic model that creates jobs and new sources of energy.
When Whirlpool Corp. purchased Maytag Corporation in 2006, it announced plans to shutter the former Maytag HQ and hundreds of employees were let go by. The White House is touting the fact that now “dozens” of the 91 employees who currently work at the plant are former Maytag workers.
“Today, this facility is alive again with new industry,” Obama said. “This community continues to struggle, and not everyone has been so fortunate as to be rehired, but more than one hundred people will now be employed at this plant, many the same folks who had lost their jobs when Maytag shut its doors.”
Iowa is the second largest wind producing state in the nation and the White House said that about half of that capacity was added just in the last year.
Before his remarks, Obama toured the Trinity facility and spoke on the factory floor with workers who showed him large steel cylinders that house wind turbines.
In Maryland today, Vice President Joe Biden marked Earth Day by announcing $300 million in stimulus funds for state and local governments to invest in clean energy vehicles.
Hawkeye State Homecoming
Today is Obama’s first trip to Iowa since being sworn-in as president, and it is a homecoming of sorts. Obama’s win in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, 2008 kicked off a nomination battle that turned into a five-month race against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Iowa will “always be a special place for the president.”
He said that he and the president were joking that they did not know you could come to Iowa and just do one stop and head home, thinking of the breakneck schedule they kept on the campaign trail in 2007.
“Most days were anywhere from four to seven stops and a hotel room that you rarely unpacked in because all you wanted to do was go to sleep,” Gibbs said.
Iowa is the seventh state -- that he flipped from red to blue on Election Day -- that Obama has visited since taking office.
White House Sizes Up Fuel Efficient Cars to Add to Fleet
The administration invited the big three automakers to drive over some of their fuel efficient cars to the White House today. The procurement office is in the process of choosing green cars to add to the 43-car White House’s fleet. Representatives from GM, Chrysler and Ford put the cars on display today on the driveway between the West Wind and the Eisenhower Executive Office building and invited White House staff to come size up the hybrid, alternative fuel, and fusion cars.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest says that the office is looking at cars that fit into the president’s environmentally-friendly vision, in fuel range, size of vehicle and energy efficiency. The new cars will be purchased in the next year and will ultimately be included the fleet which moves everything from White House staff to top officials around.
-- Karen Travers, Sunlen Miller and John Hendren
April 22, 2009 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (81)
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Everyone who voted Democrat in the last elections should sell their cars, dump their cell phones and move onto communes out in the desert.
Energy problem solved!
Posted by: RR GOP | Apr 24, 2009 1:30:24 AM
This is just another scheme to collect tax. Polls show that only 1/3 of Americans believe that if Global warming exists, that it is man made.
200 reputable scientists, nobel winners among them, dispute that climate changes are man made. Their voices are suppressed in the media however and their jobs are threatened.
Nothing in the program Obama and dems propose will actually affect the climate.
IT IS SIMPLY ANOTHER MASSIVE TAX OPPORTUNITY.
The average family will pay 1200-1400/ dollars per year to cover this new tax on business.
Obama is on video exclaiming how his proposals will raise all power rates, but doesn't even begin to discuss how this program taxes business who will inevitably pass those taxes on to the consumer.
This is a new tax that will cost the average family $1200-$1400 dollars a year in increased energy and other expenses.
This plan does not affect the climate, it just taxes us, via the back door, over and over again.
Posted by: MNM | Apr 23, 2009 12:29:28 PM
It has been reported in Wall Street Journal a week ago that even the production of wind and solar power plants have suffered great cut back due to loss of private capitals in spite of the call by BO in Congress to double the production of the renewables.. His interior secretary Salazar has been talking about replacing the coal firing power plants with a total capacity of one million mega watts by several hundred thousand off shore wind farms, which may cost more than three trillion dollars, can we afford it ?
Posted by: austin | Apr 23, 2009 9:48:40 AM
There are two silver bullets: Drill Here, Drill Now and NUCLEAR POWER. Come on People - The French have been nuclear for decades. It's safe, inexpensive, near limitless and guess what - it would CREATE JOBS and true independence.
We've been shackled by the green agenda for far too long.
Posted by: ItsTheAtomsStupid | Apr 23, 2009 9:42:05 AM
I'm glad..we won't need a silver bullet..we can't even buy regular bullets due to the Obama ammo shortage.
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | Apr 23, 2009 7:38:04 AM
earth day..hahahha
what a farce..
taxing people to protect the earth is such a sham.
and the sheep go baa baa baa and believe.
Posted by: tom | Apr 23, 2009 12:45:09 AM
I live in Des Moines, IA. Didn't pay attention to Obama's visit...I'm glad they're building windmills in Newton after Maytag closed. Anyway, the 10:00 news came on and they were talking about a high speed rail from Des Moines to Chicago.
My initial thoughts were "That's great! My inlaws live in the Quad cities, and it'd be nice to cut an hour off the trip" - I was thinking "bullet train." I actually told my wife that it'll be spectacular, as long as they don't let the government or Amtrak run it.
Then the news actually started. The "high speed train" will go 79 miles per hour. The speed limit on the interstate? 70 mph, which means it's more like 80. It'll mirror the train tracks along i-80...which there aren't track along I-80. And it's going to be Amtrak trains.
And the wind was let out of the sails...
Posted by: Middleoftheroad | Apr 23, 2009 12:18:49 AM
RyanC,
Nuclear waste storage is a POLITICAL problem, not a scientific one.Surely you know that.
No one wants it in their 'back yard'...uh,like windmills and solar farms?
(which I don't object to...I do think we'll be off carbon-based fuels in time, when it is cost-effective in the market)
I just don't believe in 'rigging' the market to make it 'cost effective'. It is smoke and mirrors, like corn-based bio-fuels.
Posted by: J House | Apr 22, 2009 10:32:38 PM
Reality Chec k is right, we can't recycle all of the waste..
But, how many people die every yr from nuclear waste? Yet, we've been storing it since 1945 around the world?
Less die from extracting coal and oil.
(in fact, it is none)
Yes, it is poisonous and has to sit around for +22,000 yrs, and that is a long time...and security is an issue.
But it is all doable...now.
I'm thinking , you think in 5000 yrs or less man will not have the tech. to handle nuclear waste? Optimism, my friend.
Posted by: J House | Apr 22, 2009 10:28:17 PM
All together green technologies investments will help the private sector create 5 million new green jobs that cannot be outsourced.
Posted by: gman | Apr 22, 2009 10:20:21 PM
If we don't get off of the oil treadmill, you will see a Republican President down the road who will have no other choice but to bow and shake hands with people of the likes of chavez.
Posted by: gman | Apr 22, 2009 10:14:29 PM
I worked with some people that were significantly smarter than me; but no of them produced more than me. Smarts only counts if you produce tangible results (that does not include smoke and mirrors, aka vaporware).
Posted by: deanbob | Apr 22, 2009 10:11:40 PM
Commericialization of plug-in hybrids, will only begin when we advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid.
Posted by: gman | Apr 22, 2009 10:10:09 PM
It takes 47 square miles Windmills or solar panels to generate the same electricity as 1 nuclear reactor. We need nuclear and oil (with new extraction technology, there more oil than many are aware of) to get us to the promised land.
Posted by: deanbob | Apr 22, 2009 10:08:59 PM
One of the most important part of the plan is within 10 years we will save more oil than we currently import from the Middle east and Venezuela combined. even a bow and hand shake can't contend with keen Intellect.
Posted by: gman | Apr 22, 2009 10:00:38 PM
For all those plug in cars, what source is gong to generate the electricity? What happens if everyone plugs in when they get home? Its going to take more than ideas to make it happen.
Posted by: deanbob | Apr 22, 2009 9:53:30 PM
Our President has a plan, doing nothing is not a option, hoping for failure is not a option, he understands that the US can lead the way, and we will, it will not bankrupt us, it will save us a lot of grief later on.
Posted by: gman | Apr 22, 2009 9:53:12 PM
thinking:Your statement that you keep closing with, "Doesn't everything have unintended consequences?", includes you. You imply that doing something is negative, I find your doing nothing is negative.
==============
I don't advocate doing nothing. I advocate proceeding cautiously.
Posted by: MayBee | Apr 22, 2009 9:42:31 PM
Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump.
help create five million new jobs by strategically investing over the next ten year to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle east and Venezuela combined.
Put 1 million Plug-in Hybrid cars- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon- on the road by 2015, care that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012,and 25 percent by 2025.
Implement an ecomomy-wide cap-and trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.........you this looks like a good plan to me, I will not listen to all the stupid republican Rhetoric, it the same as it has alway been, a hope for failure, our president got a plan which includes the American people, if allowed it will work.
Posted by: gman | Apr 22, 2009 9:28:27 PM
It seems just as likely that a nation that spends too much money chasing the wrong new energy source while excluding others and taxing others- will face decline.
Doesn't everything have unintended consequences?
****************************************
It seems to me that a public that continues to bury their head in the sand, ignore the facts, ridicule the science, defend the status quo has already declined.
Your statement that you keep closing with, "Doesn't everything have unintended consequences?", includes you. You imply that doing something is negative, I find your doing nothing is negative.
Posted by: Thinking | Apr 22, 2009 9:27:41 PM
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