Pres. Obama Fixates On Sobering Job Loss Report With Future Optimism...Green Jobs, Clean Energy

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President Obama: I just held a meeting with the CEOs of some of the most innovative Energy companies in America, to talk about growth and progress of a sector that represents a big piece of America's future.

As our Economy adapts to the challenges of a new century, new ways of producing and saving and distributing Energy offer a unique opportunity to create millions of jobs for the American people.

The jobs figures report released this morning was sobering. It shows we lost 467,000 just last month.

It took years for us to get into this mess and it will take us more than a few months to turn it around.

However I'm confident that we're not only to recover from this Recession in the short term but were also going to prosper in the long time.

To do that we have to act now to build a new foundation for lasting growth and Energy is one of the pillars for lasting growth.

Many Small Businesses are exporting their goods and services but unfortunately their biggest markets are Europe and Japan because we haven't done enough to emphasize Clean Energy in our own country.

We're going to have to shoot for the future and not look backwards.

To make the argument that we should just lock in on the status quo or perpetuate the same policies that got us into this mess in the first place, doesn't make any sense.

Americans are not folks who are afraid of the future or look backwards.

We always meet the challenge by moving forward and that's what I think is going to happen this time as well.




President Obama Meets With Energy Executives

Meeting with energy entrepreneurs Thursday afternoon, President Barack Obama urged his guests to speak up on behalf of the American Clean Energy and Security bill that passed the House of Representatives last Friday.

"He asked all of us to get out and make sure this gets through the Senate," Alex Laskey, president of the Virginia-based company Positive Energy, told POLITICO. "He felt like there's a real need for all of us who are interested in this…to tell our stories, to talk to people and lawmakers about how efficiency and renewable energy is good for the economy and good for American business and good for jobs."

Seven energy executives met with Obama on Thursday, along with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Laskey, whose firm works with utility companies to help Americans monitor and reduce their household energy use, expressed excitement at the opportunity to work with a sympathetic president.

"To have a president who is as committed as he is to changing the way we produce and use energy in this country will have terrific implications for us," he said. "He seemed genuinely interested in what government was doing right and what government was not doing enough of, to encourage, facilitate new businesses and existing businesses to thrive in this market."

In the case of his firm, Laskey estimates that Positive Energy will reduce Americans' energy consumption by $25 million this year, and argued that nationally "there's the opportunity to save people four to five billion dollars on their energy bills." The exposure from Obama just might make their job a little easier.

"I don't expect anything," Laskey said, adding: "I'm hopeful that the utilities with which we work and the utilities with which we're speaking will take note of the president's interest."

Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Politico, Youtube