Everything You Need to Know: President Obama's Blueprint for American-Made Energy
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, and again today at a UPS facility in Las Vegas, President Obama said that the country needs an “all-out, all of the above strategy that develops every available source of American energy - a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.” We’ve taken steps to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and today, American oil production is at its highest level in eight years. In 2011, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years.
With less than 2 percent of the world’s oils reserves, however, the United States must find new ways to produce the energy we need. We’ve nearly doubled our use of renewable energy in the past few years, and are back on top as the world’s leading investor in clean energy. But more can and must be done to further develop our own energy resources and transition to cleaner sources of energy.
President Obama has laid out a Blueprint for an energy strategy that does just that. His plan, which relies on American-made energy and the skills of American workers, will improve our national security, grow our economy, and create jobs, while making sure our environment and the health of our citizens aren’t put at risk.
COMMITTING TO CLEAN ENERGY
Implementing a clean energy standard: The centerpiece of President Obama’s plan to develop and use more clean energy calls for establishing a “clean energy standard," which would require utility companies to produce a larger percentage of their electricity from clean energy sources over time - including renewable sources such as wind, solar, biomass, hydropower, and nuclear, among others. With this requirement in place, clean sources would account for 80 percent of our electricity by 2035. Besides reducing carbon emissions, implementing a standard would create a larger domestic market for developing new, innovative energy technologies - and the many jobs that would come along with it.
Targeted tax incentives: To further support a growing clean energy industry, President Obama’s Blueprint calls for renewing and extending a number of already successful tax incentives. This includes tax incentives for clean energy manufacturing, which could create up to 100,000 jobs, and the Production Tax Credit to support investment in the deployment of clean energy technologies.
Opening public lands: Developing the new technologies we need is only one part of the clean energy equation. The other part requires putting the new technologies to use. To answer this call, the Department of the Interior has committed to issuing permits on public lands that will enable the generation of 10 gigawatts of renewable generation capacity – enough to power 3 million homes.
Powering the U.S. military with renewable energy: Just because Congress hasn’t moved forward with establishing a clean energy economy doesn’t prevent all progress toward using more renewable energy. To this end, President Obama announced that the Department of the Navy will make a 1 gigawatt renewable energy purchase - the largest purchase of its kind in history, and enough energy to power 250,000 homes.
Additionally, the Air Force is installing solar panels on its bases and developing cleaner, more efficient ways to fuel the military’s aircraft. In 2010, the Air Force flew an A-10 Thunderbolt entirely on alternative fuels, a first for the military.
SAFELY DEVELOPING AMERICAN OIL AND GAS RESOURCES
Natural gas: The United States is the world’s leading producer of natural gas, and we have a nearly 100-year supply of it. President Obama has directed his administration to safely develop this gas, called shale gas, in a way that will create up to 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade, according to independent experts. He also called for new rules requiring companies to disclose the chemicals they use when accessing and removing shale gas on public lands to make sure public health is protected.
To find ways to harness this abundant supply of natural gas once it’s out of the ground, President Obama’s plan proposes incentives to encourage greater use of natural gas to power our cars, trucks, and busses such as developing transportation corridors that allow trucks fueled by liquefied natural gas to transport goods. In addition, the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy is planning a research competition that asks our country’s brightest scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to develop new technologies that will put natural gas to good use. This includes searching for new ways to convert and store natural gas, new technologies that use natural gas to power our vehicles, and better ways to protect the air we breathe.
Offshore oil and gas: President Obama directed the Department of Interior to finalize a national offshore energy plan that makes 75 percent of our potential offshore resources available for development by opening new areas for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Today, the President took a concrete step forward to develop our offshore oil and gas resources by directing the Department of Interior to hold a lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, which could lead to the production of 1 billion barrels of oil and 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Learn more
- Everything you need to know about the President's Blueprint for Manufacturing
- Everything you need to know about the President's Blueprint for College Affordability
Related
- Cast your vote for America's Next Top Energy Innovator
