In his weekly radio address, President Barack Obama spoke about the fact that the country has taken the majority of it’s energy future into it’s own hands.  During the speech he continues to discuss about all the good effects that it has, and bad effects it hasn’t had.

“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 that isn’t all.  He continues to talk about how we are now wasting less, not just producing more.

“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.”

Even better, he mentions that the economy is doing better despite the reduction of carbon emissions.

“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.”

Overall, we as a country have both improved our economy, and reduced our impact on the world simultaneously.

The full story can be found on the White House Website at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/16/weekly-address-taking-control-america-s-energy-future