Dear President Obama

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

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.

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.

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 are causing many residents

to reconsider the long held pro-drilling mentality

that once reigned in the Keystone State.

I don't see any... problem with drilling.

I mean, I think, I think

probably when they started drilling

a number of years ago, they were not doing it well

and the wells weren't cast in a great way

and the chemicals that were going down the wells

probably weren't healthy, and..

I mean, I'm sure that there were some..

...there were some issues back, years and years ago but..

...but today, drilling today and how they do it

I think they're doing it very responsible.

When the first hydraulic fracturing operators

came to Pennsylvania in the mid 2000's

they didn't take out billboards to announce the new process.

Secrecy is one of the industry's primary tools.

That secrecy is understandable.

Fracking involves blasting

millions of gallons of fresh water

mixed with a toxic slurry of chemicals and sand

to blow apart the shale

and extract the gas trapped inside.