What’s the News: President Obama gave a major address outlining his plan for U.S. energy security yesterday. His major goal is quite ambitious: to cut American oil imports by one-third by 2025. And towards that goal, he listed a number of initiatives that many news organizations see as a rehashing of old ideas, however good they might be. According to The Economist, “it is hard to see his recycled list of proposals as anything more than a reassurance to the environmentally minded, and to Americans fretting about rising fuel prices, that the president feels their pain.”

How the Heck: Obama cited four major tactics for decreasing oil imports:

Increase domestic production of oil
Use more natural gas and biofuels
Spur wider use of electric cars
Increase the efficiency of gasoline-powered motor vehicles

What’s the Context:

In his speech, Obama noted that “American oil production [has] reached its highest level since 2003.” As the Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler notes, domestic oil production is higher now mostly because companies are now harvesting oil from the shale of North Dakota and other states. ...