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President Obama is rebuffing environmentalists who want him to abandon his support for domestic oil-and-gas drilling.
But he's pledging wilderness protection and calling for new steps to ensure the nation's gas production surge doesn't strand communities when the boom times end.
"The all-of-the-above energy strategy I announced a few years ago is working, and today, America is closer to energy independence than we've been in decades," Obama said in Tuesday's State of the Union address.
The speech arrives shortly after major green groups called on Obama to ditch the "all of the above" policy that backs fossil-fuel development alongside the green energy sources that environmentalists embrace.
But Obama noted that, "if extracted safely," natural gas is "the bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change."
He also touted safeguards. "My administration will keep working with the industry to sustain production and job growth while strengthening protection of our air, our water, and our communities," he said.
In a "fact sheet" distributed alongside the speech, the White House called on Congress to help create "sustainable shale gas growth zones."