Weekly Address: President Obama Touts Nearly $2 Billion in New Investments to Help Build a Clean Energy Economy

WASHINGTON – In this week’s address, President Barack Obama announced that the Department of Energy is awarding nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments from the Recovery Act to two solar companies. Abengoa Solar has agreed to build one of the largest solar plants in the world in Arizona, which will create about 1,600 construction jobs with over 70 percent of the construction components and products manufactured here in the USA.  When completed, this plant will provide enough clean energy to power 70,000 homes.  And, Abound Solar Manufacturing is building two new plants, one in Colorado and one in Indiana.  These projects will create more than 2,000 construction jobs, and over 1,500 permanent jobs as the plants produce millions of state of the art solar panels each year. 

The full audio of the address is HERE and a fact sheet HERE. The video can be viewed online at www.whitehouse.gov

Remarks of President Barack Obama
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Weekly Address
Washington, DC

This week, I spent some time in Racine, Wisconsin, talking with folks who are doing their best to cope with the aftermath of a brutal recession.

And while I was there, a young woman asked me a question I hear all the time: “What are we doing as a nation to bring jobs back to this country?”

Well, on Friday, we learned that after 22 straight months of job loss, our economy has now created jobs in the private sector for 6 months in a row.  That’s a positive sign.  But the truth is, the recession from which we’re emerging has left us in a hole that’s about 8 million jobs deep.  And as I’ve said from the day I took office, it’s going to take months, even years, to dig our way out – and it’s going to require an all-hands-on-deck effort.

In the short term, we’re fighting to speed up this recovery and keep the economy growing by all means possible.  That means extending unemployment insurance for workers who lost their job.  That means getting small businesses the loans they need to keep their doors open and hire new workers.  And that means sending relief to states so they don’t have to lay off thousands of teachers and firefighters and police officers. 

Still, at a time when millions of Americans feel a deep sense of urgency in their own lives, Republican leaders in Washington just don’t get it.  While a majority of Senators support taking these steps to help the American people, some are playing the same old Washington games and using their power to hold this relief hostage – a move that only ends up holding back our recovery.  It doesn’t make sense.

But I promised those folks in Wisconsin – and I promise all of you – that we won’t back down.  We’re going to keep fighting to advance our recovery.  And we’re going to keep competing aggressively to make sure the jobs and industries of the future are taking root right here in America.

That’s one of the reasons why we’re accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy and doubling our use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power – steps that have the potential to create whole new industries and hundreds of thousands of new jobs in America.

In fact, today, I’m announcing that the Department of Energy is awarding nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments to two solar companies.

The first is Abengoa Solar, a company that has agreed to build one of the largest solar plants in the world right here in the United States.  After years of watching companies build things and create jobs overseas, it’s good news that we’ve attracted a company to our shores to build a plant and create jobs right here in America.  In the short term, construction will create approximately 1,600 jobs in Arizona