Wilmoth: Obama backs alternative transportation fuels

Obama on March 15 proposed using $2 billion in federal oil and natural gas royalties over the next decade to pay for research on vehicles that run on electricity, natural gas and other alternative fuels.

“The only way to really break this cycle of spiking gas prices, the only way to break that cycle for good, is to shift our cars entirely — our cars and trucks — off oil,” Obama said.

Obama gave his speech in front of a natural gas-powered Honda Civic and plug-in electric hybrids Chevrolet Volt and a Ford C-Max Energi.

While there likely will be debate about how the research should be funded, the president's call for increased efforts to develop alternative fuels is an idea that local energy leaders have encouraged.

With nearly all of the country's electrical supply generated with domestic fuels, transportation fuels are seen as the biggest challenge to reducing the country's dependence on foreign oil.

Transportation fuel represents about 70 percent of the country's petroleum usage, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.