奥巴马演讲 建设21世纪清洁能源经济1

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much.  Everybody, please have a seat, have a seat.
 
Hello, Fairless Hills!  Hello, Gamesa!  It is good to be here.  I was here three years ago.  I was then a candidate -- how many folks were here at the time?  Anybody remember?  (Applause.)  We had a good visit.  I signed a blade, I think, while I was here.  I didn’t have as much gray hair back then.  (Laughter.)  You guys still look great.  I’m a little worn down.
 
It is great to be back, and I love visiting places where people are actually making stuff, because that’s what America is about.  Everybody here, you are helping¹ to build towers that are going to stand 400 feet in the air and generate enough electricity to power 600 homes.  And the blades alone are 140 feet long, so these aren’t your father’s windmills（风车） .  These are wind turbines.  You guys are not messing around.  This is the future of American energy.
 
So I wanted to come back partly because over the last two years since I’ve been President, just as I promised when I was here as a candidate, I have been promoting and boosting clean energy.  I think it’s absolutely critical for our future.  And it’s also nice to be next to cool products.
 
I think that what you do here is a glimpse of the future, and it’s a future where America is less dependent on foreign oil, more reliant（依赖的 ，可靠的） on clean energy produced by workers like you.  And I know that this is -- this whole issue of energy is on the minds of a lot of people right now, partly because you’re paying more at the pump.  Anybody notice that?  You noticed that a little bit.
 
The fact is, for a lot of folks, money was already tight before gas prices started climbing, especially for some families where the husband or the wife had been out of work or you’ve had to get by with fewer customers or hours on the job.  Having high gas prices is just one more added burden.
 
But I want everybody to remember, every time gases go up, we see the same pattern.  Washington gets all worked up, just like clockwork.  Republicans and Democrats² both start making a lot of speeches.  Usually the Democrats blame the Republicans; the Republicans blame the Democrats.  Everybody is going in front of the cameras and they’ve got some new three-point plan to promise two-dollar-a-gallon gas.  And then nothing happens.  And then gas prices go down, and then suddenly it’s not in the news anymore and everybody forgets about it until the next time gas prices go back up again.
 
That’s what was happening when I was running three years ago.  You remember “Drill, baby, drill”?  That was because the economy was overheated, gas prices were skyrocketing, and everybody made a lot of speeches but not much happened.  And I said then that we can’t afford to continue this kind of being in shock when gas prices go up and then suddenly being in a trance when things go back down again.  We’ve got to have a sustained energy policy that is consistent, that recognizes that there’s no magic formula to driving gas prices down; it’s a steady improvement in terms of how we use energy and where we get energy from -- that’s what’s going to make a difference.  That’s how we’re going to secure our energy future.
 
So last week I laid out a vision of how we could do this.  It’s a plan that says we’re not going to play the usual Washington politics that have prevented progress on energy for decades.  Instead, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take every good idea out there.  Whether you’re Republican or Democrat³, whatever the idea.  From environmentalists.  From oil men like T. Boone Pickens.  I want to have a comprehensive energy strategy that can help us move forward.  And that means we’ve got to pursue every breakthrough, every renewable resource, every technology, every approach to change the way we produce and use energy.
 
And through this plan, what we want to do is promote all kinds of homegrown energy.  That’s what’s going to help us secure our energy future.  That’s what’s going to help us win the future.
 
Now, first of all, what I want to do is, in a decade, I want us to have cut by one-third the amount of oil that we imported when I was elected to this office.  I want to cut our energy imports by a third.
 
Now, understand why that’s so important, because when you see what happens in the Middle East, and suddenly the world oil markets get spooked, even if the supply is there, your gas prices are going to go up.  The less we import, the more control we have over what happens at the pump.
 
Second, through sources like wind energy, produced in part by your turbines（涡轮） , I want us to double the amount of electricity that we draw from clean sources.  I want us to double it.  And that means by 2035, 80 percent of our electricity will come from renewables like wind and solar, as well as efficient natural gas, clean coal, nuclear power.  We can do that.
 
And by the way, that would make a huge difference here at Gamesa.  This is an approach that says we’re not going to pick one energy source over another.  What we do is we set a target, an achievable goal, and then we give industry the flexibility⁴ to achieve it.  We say to the utilities, you’ve got to get this much energy from renewable sources, and then wind is competing with solar is competing with natural gas.  And there’s a healthy competition out there, and everybody starts getting better at what they do because you’re producing more and you know you’ve got a reliable customer for it.
 
So we’re cutting oil imports by a third.  We’re going to get 80 percent of our electricity from clean sources.  And if we follow through on this, if we actually tackle this challenge, here’s what will happen.  Our economy will be less vulnerable to wild swings in oil prices.  Our nation will no longer be beholden to the countries that we now rely on for oil imports.  We won’t be sending billions of dollars a day to the Middle East.  We can potentially keep some of that invested right here at home.
 
We’ll reduce the pollution that’s disrupting our climate and threatening the planet that we leave for our children and our grandchildren.  We’ll become more energy independent.  And we’ll spark innovation and entrepreneurship across America.  We will be more likely to win the global competition for new jobs and new industries -- because I don’t know about you, I don’t want China to be the world’s leading wind power manufacturer.  I want the United States to be the leading manufacturer of wind power.  I want it made right here in the U.S. of A.  (Applause.)
 
Same thing goes with solar, same thing goes -- whatever energy source, I want us to be the best.  That’s how we’ll win the future.  But we’re going to have to out-innovate the world.  And this plant is a good example.  For decades, this was part of steel country.  Thousands went to work in the old buildings that lined these streets, forging the metal that built our trains and our ships and our cars and our skyscrapers⁵（摩天大楼） .
 
But you know the story.  The economy changed.  Those jobs vanished.  A lot of empty factories started lining⁶ these same streets.
 
But this company brought jobs back to these floors.  Buildings that were dark, they’re now humming again.  We got more than 250 people on the job at these plants and 800 workers across the state.  And Gamesa has partnered with Bucks⁷ County Community College to create a Green Jobs Academy that serves as a pipeline⁸ for new workers as the company expands.  And there are other companies pursuing clean energy along these streets as well.
 
This has made a difference in this community.  It’s made a difference for folks like Jim Bauer.  Is Jim around?  Where’s Jim?  There’s Jim right there.  (Applause.)  Hey, Jim!  See, I heard about Jim because he lost his job when the mills closed, but then he’d be pretty soon working again in the shadow of where he spent 25 years in the steel industry.  Now he’s here.
 
And there was a quote that we got from Jim.  He said, “I was forced into retirement⁹ ” -- "after I was forced into retirement, nobody would hire me for any kind of decent money.  Then I saw an ad looking for steelworkers to join Gamesa, and now I’m happy to contribute to something that’s important.
”  (Applause.)
 
And that -- there are a lot of folks out there like Jim who are hardworking, have great skills, but maybe haven’t gotten a chance.  And there’s no reason why they can’t be working in a place that’s doing some important things.,