"I want to talk about one other aspect of promising technologies, and that is the hydrogen fuel cell, which captures energy from chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. See, it captures energy from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. That's positive because the exhaust of that engine is water. It's -- and I'm confident we can achieve this technological breakthrough to the point where I've asked Congress to spend $1.2 billion -- which they have -- in research into devveloping clean hydrogen powered cars. 

We are making progress on hydrogen fuel cells, and that's positive. Private companies, including auto makers -- see, auto makers are beginning to see what the future is going to be like. They're beginning to see the need for diversification away from the current energy policy. They've already spent a billion dollars of their own money to develop hydrogen fuel powered cars and the infrastructure necessary to deliver hydrogen fuel. 

See, one of the challenges is not only developing a car that works, but imagine the infrastructure changes necessary to fuel cars ten years from now. One of the things consumers like is they like to go to their neighborhood gas station. When you hear talk about development of infrastructures like go to your neighborhood hydrogen station -- and that's going to be a difficult hurdle in order to make sure that we've changed behavior here in America, but it's a hurdle that we've got to overcome. It's a necessary hurdle. 

Today, the Department of Energy has selected recipients for $350 million of research grants. In other words, the administration is now acting upon the Congress' appropriations. They're funding research into practical hydrogen fuel storage. So not only how you distribute it, how do you store hydrogen. They're encouraging the construction of hydrogen refueling stations around the country. We're beginning to change behavior. And they're helping scientists develop hydrogen fuel cells that can be used in heavy trucks and farm equipment and other industrialized vehicles. 

See, when we get it right here, when we get the hydrogen car up and running, not only will it make America a better place, we'll become the innovator of the world. That's what we want to be. We want to be the leader in the world. We want to be the country that leads the world in innovation and technological change"