Presidential Weekly Address - 16 November 2013

by Barack Obama

THE PRESIDENT: Hi, everybody. On Thursday, I visited a steel plant in Cleveland, Ohio to talk about what we’re doing to rebuild our economy on a new foundation for stronger, more durable economic growth. One area where we’ve made great progress is American energy. After years of talk about reducing our dependence on foreign oil, we are actually poised to control our own energy future.

Shortly after I took office, we invested in new American technologies to reverse our dependence on foreign oil and double our wind and solar power. And today, we generate more renewable energy than ever – with tens of thousands of good, American jobs to show for it. We produce more natural gas than anyone – and nearly everyone’s energy bill is lower because of it. And just this week, we learned that for the first time in nearly two decades, the United States of America now produces more of our own oil here at home than we buy from other countries.

That’s a big deal. That’s a tremendous step towards American energy independence.

But this is important, too: we reached this milestone in part not only because we’re producing more energy, but because we’re wasting less energy. We set new fuel standards for our cars and trucks so that they’ll go twice as far on a gallon of gas by the middle of the next decade. That’s going to save an average driver more than $8,000 at the pump over the life of a new car. We also launched initiatives to put people to work upgrading our homes, businesses, and factories so that they waste less energy. That’s going to save our businesses money on their energy bills – that's money they can use to hire more workers.

Here’s another thing. Between more clean energy, and less wasted energy, our emissions of dangerous carbon pollution are actually falling. That’s good news for anyone who cares about the world we leave to our kids.

And while our carbon emissions have been dropping, our economy has been growing. Our businesses have created 7.8 million new jobs in the past 44 months. It proves that the old argument that we can’t strengthen the economy and be good stewards of our planet at the same time is a false choice. We can do both. And we have to do both.

More good jobs. Cheaper and cleaner sources of energy. A secure energy future. Thanks to the grit and resilience of American businesses and the American people, that’s where we’re heading. And as long as I’m President, that’s where we’re going to keep heading – to leave our children a stronger economy, and a safer planet.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.