"Now, in terms of new sources of energy, we have a few different options. The first is natural gas. Recent innovations have given us the opportunity to tap large reserves -- perhaps a century's worth of reserves, a hundred years worth of reserves -- in the shale under our feet. But just as is true in terms of us extracting oil from the ground, we've got to make sure that we're extracting natural gas safely, without polluting our water supply.

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That's why I've asked Secretary Chu, my Energy Secretary, to work with other agencies, the natural gas industry, states, and environmental experts to improve the safety of this process. And Chu is the right guy to do this. He's got a Nobel Prize in physics. He actually deserved his Nobel Prize. And this is the kind of thing that he likes to do for fun on the weekend. He goes into his garage and he tinkers around and figures out how to extract natural gas.

I'm going to embarrass him further. Last year, when we were trying to fill - figure out how to close the cap, I sent Chu down to sit in the BP offices, and he essentially designed the cap that ultimately worked, and he drew up the specs for it and had BP build it, construct it. So this is somebody who knows what he's doing. So for those of you who are studying physics, it may actually pay off someday.

But the potential for natural gas is enormous. And this is an area where there's actually been some broad bipartisan agreement. Last year, more than 150 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle produced legislation providing incentives to use clean-burning natural gas in our vehicles instead of oil. And that's a big deal. Getting 150 members of Congress to agree on anything is a big deal. And they were even joined by T. Boone Pickens, a businessman who made his fortune on oil, but who is out there making the simple point that we can't simply drill our way out of our energy problems.

So I ask members of Congress and all the interested parties involved to keep at it, pass a bill that helps us achieve the goal of extracting natural gas in a safe, environmentally sound way."