Darren Samuelsohn
Politico.com
3/30/2011
Wading into a potent political issue that has challenged every president since Richard Nixon, Barack Obama made a sweeping call for energy reform on Wednesday, centered around cutting into U.S. reliance on foreign sources of oil.
With several months of Middle East turmoil wreaking havoc on global energy markets and domestic gas prices, Obama used his speech at Georgetown University as a platform to outline a series of executive policies and legislative ideas that he hopes will help the United States reach his newest goal of curbing imports by a third over the next decade.
White House officials billed Obama’s remarks as a major pivot to energy security from foreign policy, including NATO-led airstrikes in Libya. And with his remarks, the president swung hard at GOP critics for resurrecting the “drill, baby, drill” mantra they used against him as energy prices soared during the 2008 campaign.
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