Speaking in Miami today, President Obama addressed Republicans who seek to capitalize on higher gas prices for their own political gain while they ignore the real facts and underestimate the intelligence of American voters.
Now, some politicians always see this as a political opportunity. You’re shocked, I know. Last week, the lead of one news story said, “Gasoline prices are on the rise, and Republicans are licking their chops.” Only in politics do people greet bad news so enthusiastically. You pay more, and they’re licking their chops? And you can bet that since it’s an election year, they’re already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas. I’ll save you the suspense: Step one is drill, step two is drill, and step three is keep drilling. We heard the same thing in 2007, when I was running for President. We hear the same thing every year. We’ve heard the same thing for thirty years.
Well the American people aren’t stupid. You know that’s not a plan – especially since we’re already drilling. It’s a bumper sticker. It’s not a strategy to solve our energy challenge. It’s a strategy to get politicians through an election. You know there are no quick fixes to this problem, and you know we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices. If we’re going to take control of our energy future; if we’re going to avoid these gas price spikes down the line, then we need a sustained, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy – oil, gas, wind, solar, nuclear, bio-fuels, and more. We need to keep developing the technology that allows us to use less oil in our cars and trucks; in our buildings and plants. That’s the strategy we’re pursuing, and that’s the only real solution to this challenge....]
[...A century of subsidies to the oil companies is long enough. It’s time to end taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s never been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. This Congress needs to renew the clean energy tax credits that will lead to more jobs and less dependence on foreign oil.
The potential of a sustained, all-of-the-above energy strategy is all around us. In 2008, Miami became the first major American city to power its city hall entirely with solar and renewable energy. The modernization of your power grid so that it wastes less energy is one of the largest projects of its kind. On a typical day, the wind turbine at the Miami-Dade Museum can meet about 10% of the energy needs in a South Florida home, and the largest wind producer in the country is over at Juno Beach. Right here at this university, your work is helping manufacturers save millions of dollars in energy bills by making their facilities more efficient.
The role of the federal government isn’t to supplant this work or direct this research. It’s to support these discoveries. It’s to help businesses get new energy ideas off the ground. After all, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, which helped develop the technologies that companies are now using to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock.
The payoffs on these public investments don’t always come right away. Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies will fail. But as long as I’m President, I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because some politicians in Washington refused to make the same commitment here in America. With or without this Congress, I’ll continue to do whatever I can to develop every source of American energy, so that our future isn’t controlled by events on the other side of the world.
Today, we’re taking a step that will make it easier for companies to save money by investing in energy solutions that have been proven here at the University of Miami – new lighting systems; advanced heating and cooling systems that can lower a company’s energy bills and make them more competitive. We’re launching a program that will bring together the nation’s best scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to figure out how more cars can be powered by natural gas – a fuel that’s cleaner, cheaper, and more abundant than oil. And we’re making new investments in the development of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel that’s actually made from a plant-like substance known as algae. Believe it or not, we could replace up to 17% of the oil we import for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in America. That means greater security. That means lower costs. That means more jobs.
None of these steps I’ve talked about today represent the silver bullet that will bring down gas prices tomorrow, or reduce our dependence on foreign oil overnight. And that’s because there is no silver bullet. There never has been.
But while we don’t have a silver bullet, what we do have in this country are limitless sources of energy, and a boundless supply of ingenuity and imagination that we can put to work developing that energy.
It’s the easiest thing in the world make phony election-year promises about lower gas prices. What’s harder is to make a serious, sustained commitment to tackle a problem that may not be solved in one year or one term or even one decade. But that’s the kind of commitment we need right now. That’s what this moment requires.
