Obama: Offshore oil drilling bad; offshore wind/ocean "power" good? - Bloomberg.com

April 22 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said his administration is taking steps to begin leasing tracts off U.S. shores for electricity generation projects using wind and ocean currents.

The president said the initiative will open the way to “major investments” in projects on the Continental Shelf and that interest already is high in putting wind-power turbines off the coasts of New Jersey and Delaware. He also said he will continue pursuing a “market-based cap” for emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas linked to climate change.

Text of President Obama's remarks today in Newton, Iowa | DesMoinesRegister.com | The Des Moines Register

...As I’ve often said, in the short-term, as we transition to renewable energy, we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas. We also need to find safer ways to use nuclear power and store nuclear waste.

But the bulk of our efforts must focus on unleashing a new, clean energy economy that will begin to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, cut our carbon pollution by about 80 percent by 2050, and create millions of new jobs right here in America.
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The fact is, we place limits on pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and other harmful emissions. But we haven’t placed any limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. This is called the carbon loophole. [what about the water vapor loophole?]
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I believe the best approach is through legislation that places a market-based cap on these kinds of emissions. Today key members of my administration are testifying in Congress on a bill that seeks to enact exactly this kind of market-based approach. My hope is that this will be the vehicle through which we put this policy in effect.
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That can be our legacy. A legacy of vehicles powered by clean renewable energy traveling past newly opened factories; of burgeoning industries employing millions of Americans in the work of protecting our planet; of an economy exporting the energy of the future – instead of importing the energy of the past; of a nation once again leading the world to meet the challenges of our time.