WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama says it's time to roll back "billions of dollars in tax breaks" for oil companies and use the money for clean energy research and development.
Obama made the comments Wednesday in a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
He said the catastrophic Gulf oil spill shows the country must move toward clean energy by embracing energy efficiency, tapping natural gas and nuclear power and eliminating tax breaks for big oil.
Obama said that the Gulf spill "may prove to be a result of human error — or corporations taking dangerous shortcuts that compromised safety" — but that deepwater drilling is inherently risky and America cannot rely solely on fossil fuels.
Obama also reiterated his push for an energy bill currently stuck in Congress. "The votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months," he said. "I will make the case for a clean energy future wherever I can, and I will work with anyone from either party to get this done."
Obama delivered the remarks as part of a broader speech aimed at trying to assure the country that he is also working on the people's chief concern — the economy.
The president said Wednesday he is working to rebuild the economy without much help from Republicans, saying they have mostly "sat on the sidelines and shouted from the bleachers."
In his speech, the president aggressively sought to cast Republicans as a party that fought him on tax cuts for small businesses, tax credits for college tuition, new spending on clean energy and more.
The president's remarks also underscored the importance of the upcoming midterm elections, in which the outcome of House and Senate races could shape Obama's ability to enact his agenda for the rest of his term.
"We already know where their ideas led us," Obama said of Republicans. "And now we have a choice as a nation. We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future."


The president said that as the election approaches, he expects Republicans to make the same economic argument they have for decades.
He described that as giving tax cut to millionaires "who didn't need them," gutting regulations and putting industry insiders in charge of oversight, as well as shortchanging investment in research.
"To be fair, a good deal of the other party's opposition to our agenda has also been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about government," Obama said. "It's a belief that government has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges."
He added: "It's an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations."
The White House said Obama's remarks describe the progress that has been made in building the "new foundation" for growth and prosperity that the president called for a year ago.
That new foundation, Obama said in April 2009, would be built on five pillars: new rules for Wall Street; investments in education, renewable energy and health care; and reductions in federal spending to bring down budget deficits.
In some areas, the president can claim victory. His administration's $862 billion stimulus plan included significant investments in education and incentives for growth in renewable energy industries. The $1 trillion health care bill he signed into law in March was the largest overhaul of the U.S. health care system in decades.
But not every goal has been met. A sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulations is still tied up in Congress, with lawmakers hoping to deliver final legislation to the president by July 4.
And the national debt has ticked up to $13 trillion on Obama's watch. The president contends the recession made it necessary to add to the debt in the short term. He's appointed a bipartisan commission to make recommendations to Congress on ways the government can balance the budget by 2015.
The April unemployment report showed that 15.3 million people remain out of work, and economists say it will take at least five years to regain the nearly 8 million jobs wiped out during the recession. The nation's unemployment rate is expected to hover near 10 percent through the end of year.
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, who lost his re-election bid last month when he fell to Rep. Joe Sestak in the Senate primary, traveled with Obama to the event. Obama's administration disclosed last week that it had tried indirectly to nudge Sestak out of the race against Specter by tapping former President Bill Clinton to offer him an unpaid position in the administration. Sestak rejected the idea last year.