This week, President Obama called on our nation to put an end – once and for all – to our dependence on foreign oil. He laid out a plan for a more secure future by producing energy here at home, and investing in efficient vehicles and buildings. You can read more about it and watch a video of the President’s speech at Georgetown University in the Administration’s Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future on the White House blog.
Rural America is helping to lead these efforts.
Rural America supplies much of our nation’s renewable electricity– generating power from wood, biofuels, wind, and geothermal sources. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) will work to increase this production to help meet the President’s goal of supplying 80 percent of our electricity from clean energy sources by 2035.
And today, rural Americans produce biofuels that help replace almost 10 percent of our gasoline for cars and trucks. Increasing the production of biofuels presents an extraordinary opportunity to grow our economy, build new industries, put Americans to work, and minimize risks to our environment. That is why I have set out a comprehensive strategy to help build a national biofuels industry through research, construction of new biofuels production facilities, and infrastructure to put biofuels in America’s gas tanks.
By investing in a clean energy economy, we can out-innovate and out-build the rest of the world to win the future. But we must begin today, for the sake of our economy, our prosperity, and future generations.