President Barack Obama took a muddled approach to energy issues in last night's State of the Union address.

Obama led that part of his speech with a fact: American oil production is at the highest it's been in eight years. His administration, he said, has opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration.

Well, prepare for even more drilling.

"I'm directing my administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources," he said.

Pretty soon after that, Obama proposed the 2008 Republican "all-of-the-above" energy plan. When he started talking about natural gas, and fracking, and the jobs from natural gas and fracking, he might as well have whooped out "Drill, baby, drill."

Then he did a 180 into clean energy. He endorsed technologies like wind turbines and solar and called for federal investment in them. He prodded Congress to create a federal clean-energy standard. He admitted defeat on comprehensive climate legislation. He called for clean energy tax credits. And he again proposed eliminating subsidies for the oil industry.

Obama has to deal with certain realities, which I realize prevent him from acting idealistically. The country depends on fossil fuels now, and those are needs which the present clean-energy infrastructure cannot meet.

But I can't tell what his priority is. Does he want to transition America from its dependence on oil and natural gas? Or is he just trying to make sure a fossil-fuel-dependent US has access to cheap-enough energy, regardless of the source?

At least he was clear on energy conservation, which is the simplest, cheapest, and most effective way to address just about any energy-related issue faced by the US. Unconsumed energy requires no fuel, no generator, no processing, and no transmission system. It also has no cost and generates no pollution.

This part of Obama's speech is what made the most sense to me, in terms of energy issues:

"Of course, the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy. So here's a proposal: Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings. Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the next decade, and America will have less pollution, more manufacturing, more jobs for construction workers who need them. Send me a bill that creates these jobs."