Dear President Obama

[birds chirping]

[crickets chirping]

[metal clanging]

[engines revving]

[applause]

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And nowhere

is the promise of innovation

greater than in American

made energy.

American oil production

is the highest that it's been

in eight years.

We have a supply of natural gas

that can last America

nearly 100 years.

This country needs an all out,

all of the above strategy

that develops every available

source of American energy.

[applause]

[instrumental music]

I am very...firm..

...in my conviction

that the country

that leads the way

in clean energy

solar, wind, bio-diesel

geothermal, uh..

...that country is gonna

win the race

in the 21st century

global economy.

Ending our dependence

on fossil fuels

represents perhaps

the most difficult challenge

we have ever faced.

I believe that if we're serious

about meeting

our energy challenge

we need to operate

on all cylinders.

We, it turns out

are the Saudi Arabia

of natural gas.

We've got a lot of it.

[music continues]

The time has come

once and for all

for this nation to fully embrace

a clean energy future.

For the sake of our security

our economy and our planet

we must have the courage

and commitment to change.

[music continues]

My administration

will consider potential areas

for development

in the mid and south Atlantic

and the Gulf of Mexico.

I'm directing

the Department of Interior

to conduct annual lease sales

in Alaska's

National Petroleum Reserve.

We have a record number

of oil rigs operating right now.

More working oil and gas rigs

than the rest

of the world combined.

So do not tell me

that we're not drilling.

We're drilling

all over this country.

[cheering]

[music continues]

Climate change is a fact

and when our

children's children

look us in eye and ask

if we did all we could

to leave them a safer

more stable world

with new sources of energy

I want us to be able to say,

"Yes, we did."

[applause]

God bless you, and God bless

the United States of America.

[cheering]

(Mark)

It's a tough job being the

President of the United States.

In many respects

it's an impossible job

trying to keep so many

different factions happy.

While at the same time

guarding the security

and future of the country

and of the world.

[instrumental music]

Few things have been

more volatile

during this

President's tenure

than trying to blend

our energy needs

and climate future.

The notion that America

could become energy independent

was certainly not

on anyone's horizon in 2008.

As a result,

the President has wrestled

with his energy vision.

We've got to have a sustained

all of the above strategy

that develops every available

source of American energy.

When President Obama

took office

he could not have predicted

the breadth of change he'd see

on the energy front.

He proposed more

deep water drilling

and then the BP oil rig

exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.

He suggested nuclear might be

a part of the future.

And then the plant in Fukushima

flooded, leaked,

and was closed.

He approved drilling

in the Arctic North

but it proved too risky.

Early in his terms

he championed

the potential of clean coal.

But he ultimately has worked

to shut down

the entire coal industry.

During these same years,

alternative energy options

like solar and wind

have grown dramatically.

Solar panels abound on rooftops

and in large arrays.

Wind mills mixed with corn

fields and desert landscapes.

More jobs are being created

in the renewable industries

than in any other

energy sector.

But on President Obama's watch

"fracking" became

a household word

and 80,000

new oil and gas wells

were drilled across

the country.

All of that cheap oil and gas

wrought from the shale

has filled us

with false promise.

Whether it be an

old style pump jack

towering natural gas

drilling rig

or the relatively

small footprint of tanks

permanently stationed

on a well pad.

Today, more than 17 million

Americans live within a mile

of at least one oil

or gas well.

While shale gas and oil plays

have been tapped

in over 30 states

the infrastructure to support

distribution of all that

fracked oil and gas

sprawls across the country

including compressors stations,

pipelines, and oil trains

transporting unrefined crude

coast to coast.

Even states with no

fossil fuel resources

are forced to face the

ancillary impacts of fracking

often becoming

the unwilling repositories

for toxic by-products.

Harvested for materials

like silica sand..

...or having

fresh water removed

from the hydrological cycle

forever.

Though the United States

has a long relationship

with the gas and oil industry,

going back more than a century

today's new extreme energy

extraction gold rush

may prove to be

the President's most profound

and possibly most damaging

environmental legacy.

He came into office...2008..

Things were looking peachy.

Somebody on his staff

some bodies on his staff

his advisors,

his energy advisor

his science advisor said

"Boy, are you lucky.

"You came into office

at just the right time

"because the ind-industry

has figured out

"how to get a lot of gas

and oil out of shale.

"Never thought we could do it,

but now we know we can do it

"and we have a lot of it.

"Hundred years of natural gas.

"You are the luckiest president

to ever come in to office

because look what we gave you."

He's trying to have it

both ways.

You know,

please the oil and gas industry

uh, lower energy prices

by producing more oil and gas.

But on the other hand, uh

regulate the coal industry

to reduce emissions.

It's not that simple.

Solutions to our

energy quandary

are available today.

But what is required is a plan.

A vision...a bold leader.

Last year, the world

came together in Paris

to define a new energy future

and to agree on a plan

to reduce climate

damaging emissions

nation by nation.

Urgency was given

to the gathering

by the common knowledge

that this could be

our last moment to act

to save much of what

we hold most precious

and to pass on a planet

worthy of our children.

[applause]

What was accomplished in Paris

late in 2015, was a good start

but what now?

These are the tar-balls..

As this president shapes

his environmental legacy

and as the next president

prepares to pick up

where he's left off..

..we want to introduce you

to some of those

17 million people

across the country

that have paid a price

for the boom

in extreme energy extraction.

It is their stories

that will hopefully

inform and hasten

our next moves

toward a clean

energy revolution.

Pennsylvania claims the very

first commercial oil well

in the US, going back

over a hundred years.

More recently,

it has become ground zero

in the fight over fracking.

Health complaints and evidence

of contaminated water and air

showed up here

soon after the boom began.

The negatives of fracking

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