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.

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/26/everything-you-need-know-president-obamas-blueprint-american-made-energy