Obama Outlines His Energy Vision, New Plan to Lease US Waters for Power Projects

Barack Obama spent his first Earth Day as president touring a wind tower production plant in Newton, Iowa, where he laid out his plan to create a new clean energy economy, end America’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce air and water pollution, and address climate change.

During his visit to the Trinity Structural Towers wind tower plant, Obama also announced a new initiative to lease U.S. coastal waters for the purpose of generating electricity from wind and ocean currents.

"Through the Department of Interior, we are establishing a program to authorize – for the very first time – the leasing of federal waters for projects to generate electricity from wind as well as from ocean currents and other renewable sources."

Obama said wind power could supply 20 percent of U.S. electricity needs by 2030 and support 250,000 jobs.

Obama offered the new Trinity Structural Towers wind tower plant, which replaced a Maytag factory that closed in 2007, as an illustration of the necessary transition from the old economy to the new—but the example turned out to be more symbolic than compelling. The former Maytag factory employed about 4,000 people in the town of 16,000; the new Trinity plant employs fewer than 100 and expects to increase that number to around 140.

Obama acknowledged that Newton is still going through hard times, but he told the Trinity workers, many of whom were Maytag employees until the factory closed, that “you are helping to lead the next energy revolution.” The president also talked about his proposal for a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the need to make renewable energy more economical and to create incentives for everyone—from corporations to consumers—to invest in clean energy and energy efficiency.

“Now, the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy,” Obama said. “The choice we face is between prosperity and decline. We can remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy. We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc across the landscape, or we can create jobs working to prevent its worst effects. We can hand over the jobs of the 21st century to our competitors, or we can confront what countries in Europe and Asia have already recognized as both a challenge and an opportunity: The nation that leads the world in creating new energy sources will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy.

“America can be that nation. America must be that nation,” he said.