Press Release: Remarks of President Barack Obama at POET Biorefining in Macon, Missouri - As Prepared for Delivery

As Prepared for Delivery—

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for that warm welcome. It is good to be in Missouri, and it's great to be with all of you at POET. Steve Burnett just gave Secretary Vilsack and me a tour of this fine facility, and I know Steve is very proud of an anniversary that's coming up.

Ten years ago next month, this plant produced its first gallon of ethanol. Today, 45 employees produce 46 million gallons a year. So one of you is overachieving. Congratulations to all of you.

I've come here today, and I visited Iowa yesterday, because there's a lot that towns in Middle America can share with the rest of America. There's certainly a lot you can share with Washington. Common sense, for one. So I just wanted to talk with folks like you about what your communities are experiencing — the economic pain, but also the economic possibilities.

Lately, we've seen some welcome news after a hard two years. Our economy is growing, our markets are climbing, and our businesses are beginning to create jobs again. But when you get out to this neck of the woods and others like it, you see that the recovery hasn't reached everyone just yet. Times are tough out here. In some places, they have been for a long time.

In the two years I spent running for President and visiting towns like these, a lot of folks talked about how the American Dream was getting harder and harder to reach. Families were having a tough time getting ahead. Farmers were having a tough time getting by. And worse, many of our young people grew convinced that their only chance to find opportunity was to seek it someplace else.

But success stories like POET prove that doesn't have to be the case. And I believe we can help companies like yours replicate them across the country.

Since I took office, we had to take a series of steps to rescue our economy and recover from this crisis. But we've also taken steps to rebuild our economy on a new foundation for long-term growth and prosperity — to create conditions so that folks who work hard can finally get ahead.

That means making our schools more competitive and college more affordable. That means health insurance reform that gives families and businesses more choice, more competition, and better protection from the worst abuses of the insurance industry. That means commonsense reforms that prevent the irresponsibility of a few on Wall Street from threatening the dreams of millions on Main Street. And that means igniting a new, clean energy economy that generates good jobs right here in America.

For decades, we talked about doing this. For decades, we talked about how our dependence on oil threatened our economy; but our will to act rose and fell with the price at the pump. We talked about how it threatened future generations; even as we witnessed growing evidence of climate change. We talked about how it threatened our security; even as we grew more dependent every year.

As we talked, other nations acted; recognizing that the country that leads the clean energy economy will be the country that leads the 21st century global economy. And they made serious investments to win that race and the jobs that come with it.

Well, as I've said before, I don't accept second place for the United States of America. That's why our energy security has been a top priority for my administration since the day I took office.

We began early last year by making the largest investment in clean energy in our nation's history. It's an investment expected to create or save more than 700,000 jobs across America by the end of 2012 — jobs manufacturing next-generation batteries for next-generation vehicles; jobs upgrading to a smarter, stronger power grid; jobs doubling our capacity to generate renewable electricity from sources like the sun and the wind and biofuels, just like you do here.

That investment was part of the Recovery Act. And it included $800 million in funding for ethanol fueling infrastructure, biorefinery construction, and advanced biofuels research to help us reach a goal I've set: to more than triple America's biofuels production in the next twelve years.

I've also created a biofuels working group led by Secretary Vilsack, our Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and our EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson. And they're working to promote this generation of biofuels and help you deliver the next.

After all, I may be President these days, but I used to be a Senator from Illinois. I didn't just discover the merits of biofuels like ethanol when I first hopped on the campaign bus. I believe in their potential to contribute to our rural economies and our clean energy economy. So does our military, by the way. Just last week, the Navy tested a fighter jet — appropriately named the Green Hornet — that is now the first plane ever to fly faster than the speed of sound while running on a mix of half biofuel. I actually saw that plane for myself last week. It was pretty cool.

So there shouldn't be any doubt that renewable, homegrown fuels are a key part of our strategy for a clean energy future — a future of new industries, new jobs in towns like Macon, and new independence.

Here at POET, you do more than just help stake America's claim on that future. You stake Macon's claim on America's future. And I'm committed to making sure that communities like this one have a bright future of opportunity to look forward to. Thank you, everybody.