Hi, everybody.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed over the past few weeks, the price at your local pump has been going up and up.
And because it’s an election year, so has the temperature of our political rhetoric. What matters most to me right now is the impact that rising prices have on you.
When you’ve got to spend more on gas, you’ve got less to spend on everything else.
It makes things harder.
So I wanted to take a minute this weekend to explain what steps my Administration is taking when it comes to energy – most importantly, producing more of it while using less of it. The truth is: the price of gas depends on a lot of factors that are often beyond our control.
Unrest in the Middle East can tighten global oil supply.
Growing nations like China or India adding cars to the road increases demand.
But one thing we should control is fraud and manipulation that can cause prices to spike even further. For years, traders at financial firms were able to game the energy markets, distort the price of oil, and make big profits for themselves at your expense.
And they were able to do all that because of major gaps and loopholes in our regulations.
When I took office, we did something about it. The Wall Street reforms I signed into law are helping bring energy markets out of the shadows and under real oversight.
They’re strengthening our ability to go after fraud and to prevent traders from manipulating the market.
So it’s not just wrong, but dangerous that some in Congress want to roll back those protections and return to the days when companies like Enron could avoid regulation and reap enormous profits, no matter who it hurt. What’s more, at a time when big oil companies are making more money than ever before, we’re still giving them $4 billion of your tax dollars in subsidies every year.
Your member of Congress should be fighting for you.
Not for big financial firms.
Not for big oil companies. In the next few weeks, I expect Congress to vote on ending these subsidies.
And when they do, we’re going to put every single Member of Congress on record: They can either stand up for oil companies, or they can stand up for the American people.
They can either place their bets on a fossil fuel from the last century, or they can place their bets on America’s future.
So make your voice heard.
Send your representative an email.
Give them a call.
Tell them to stand with you. And tell them to be honest with you.
It’s easy to promise a quick fix when it comes to gas prices.
There just isn’t one.
Anyone who tells you otherwise – any career politician who promises some three-point plan for two-dollar gas – they’re not looking for a solution.
They’re just looking for your vote.
If we’re truly going to make sure we’re not at the mercy of spikes in gas prices every year, the answer isn’t just to drill more – because we’re already drilling more.
Under my Administration, we’re producing more oil here at home than at any time in the last eight years, that’s a fact. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating oil rigs to a record high, that’s a fact.
And we’ve opened millions of acres on land and offshore to develop more of our domestic resources. Those are the facts.
But we can’t just rely on drilling.
Not when we use more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but still only have 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves.
If we don’t develop other sources of energy, and the technology to use less energy, we’ll continue to be dependent on foreign countries for our energy needs.
That’s why we’re pursuing an all-of-the-above strategy.
As we develop more oil and gas, we’re also developing wind and solar power; biofuels, and next-generation vehicles – and thousands of Americans have jobs right now because of it.
We need to keep making those investments – because I don’t want to see those jobs go to other countries.
I want to create even more of them right here in America. And after three decades of inaction, we raised fuel economy standards so that by the middle of the next decade, our cars will average nearly 55 miles per gallon.
That’s nearly double what they get today.
That means you’ll only have to fill up every two weeks instead of every week.
And that will save the typical family more than $8,000 over the life of the car – just by using less gas. Combined, these steps have helped put us on a path to greater energy independence.
Since I took office, America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year.
In 2010, for the first time in 13 years, less than half the oil we used came from foreign countries. We can do even better.
And we will.
But what we can’t do is keep being dependent on other countries for our energy needs.
In America we control our own destiny.
So that’s the choice we face – the past, or the future.
And America is what it is today because we have always placed our bets on the future.
Thanks, and have a great weekend.
大家好。我想在过去的几个星期里，大家都注意到了我们各地的油价是一涨再涨。由于时逢大选年，这也成为当前政治话题的热门词汇。
对我而言，我当下最关注的是上涨的油价对大家的影响。如果大家在油费上增加支出，那么肯定要减少其他方面的支出。事情变得比较难办。因此，我本周想花点时间向大家讲解一下政府为应对目前最为重要的能源问题所采取的措施：增加产量，减少使用量。
事实是，油价所基于的大量因素并不在我们的掌控之中。中东地区的动荡使全球石油供应趋紧。而像中国和印度这样的发展中国家不断增长的汽车数量也增加了对石油的需求。但有一件事情是我们可以控制的，那就是导致了油价进一步高涨的欺诈和恶意操纵。
数年来，金融公司的交易人员能够玩弄能源市场，扭曲了石油价格，通过大家的开销为他们自己攫取了巨额的利润。他们之所以能这么做主要是由于我们监管上的空缺和漏洞。当我主政之后，我们为此做了不少工作。
我签署生效的华尔街改革法案帮助能源市场走到阳光下，得到有效的监管。这一法案在追查欺诈和防止交易人员操纵市场上增强了我们的能力。所以这一点错误都没有，但危险存在于一些国会议员希望撤销这些保护措施，重回让安然公司这样的企业可以规避监管，不顾他人死活的掠取巨额利润的日子。
更滑稽的是，当这些大型石油公司赚取着史无前例的金钱利润的时候，我们依然每年用纳税人的钱给他们提供40亿美元的补贴。大家选出来的国会议员们应该为你们争取利益，而不是为大型金融企业，也不是为大型的石油公司。
在未来几个星期，我希望国会就终止这些补贴进行投票。当他们做这件事的时候，我们将让每个国会议员公开表述自己的意见：他们要么代表石油公司的利益，要么代表美国人民的利益。他们要么把赌注押到自上个世纪开始使用的化石燃料身上，要么就押到美国的未来上。因此请大家发表意见。向你们的议员们发送电子邮件，给他们打电话吧，让他们与你们站在一起。
告诉他们对你们以诚相待。在油价问题上提出快速解决方案的承诺很容易。但这根本就不可能实现。任何人，任何职业政治家向大家承诺实现两美元油价的三步计划，都不是要寻求解决方案。这种人只是想要得到你们的投票。
如果我们真的想要摆脱每年上涨油价的控制的话，答案就不会仅仅是开采更多，因为我们已经开采了更多。在本届政府领导下，我们国内生产的石油比过去八年里任何时候都要多，这是事实。我们正在运转中的石油钻井平台数量创纪录的翻了四倍，这也是实事。我们开放了数百万英亩的陆地和近海区域来支持更多利用国内资源。
这都是实事。但我们不能仅仅依靠不断开采这一措施。尤其是当我们只有全球已探明石油储量的2%，却消耗了全世界20%的石油的时候，我们不能这么做。如果我们不发展其它形式的能源，不利用技术减少能源使用，我们将继续为我们的能源需求而依赖于其他国家。这是我们要制定一个最高能源战略的原因所在。在我们生产更多石油和天然气的同时，我们也在发展风能和太阳能，生物燃料，以及下一代的交通工具，这些也让成千上万的美国人有了工作。我们需要继续保持对这些领域的投资，因为我不希望看到这些工作机会流失到其他国家。我希望更多的在国内创造就业机会。
在经过了30多年的一成不变之后，我们提高了燃油经济性标准，这样到下个十年的中期，我们的汽车平均用1加仑油可以行驶55英里。这是现有水平的两倍。这也意味着你们只需要每两周加一次油而不用周周都去。这也将为普通家庭在一辆车的使用周期内节省8000多美元，依靠的就是减少用油。
综合来看，这些措施已经让我们在更广阔的能源独立性道路上前进。自我主政以来，美国对海外石油的依赖性每一年都在下降。2010年是13年以来的首次，我们使用的石油只有不到一半来自海外国家。
我们可以做的更好。一定可以。但我们不能做的就是让我们的能源需求继续依赖其它国家。在美国，我们掌控着我们自己的命运。因此这就是我们面临的抉择：面向过去还是未来。美国之所以有今天就是因为我们相信自己的未来。谢谢大家，周末愉快！ |