President Obama hasn’t been entirely hindered by congressional inaction on his major initiatives of the year, he said on Friday.
“Even when Congress doesn’t move on things they should move on, there’s a whole bunch of things we’re still doing. We don’t always get attention for it,” Obama said during his final press conference of the year.
{mosads}Obama pointed to an initiative unveiled this year that aims to ensure high-speed broadband and wireless Internet access for 99 percent of the country’s students in five years, called ConnectED. That program “will make a huge difference for kids all across this country and for teachers,” he said.
The president also praised upticks in the country’s oil production. Last month, for the first time in about two decades, domestic crude oil production surpassed foreign imports.
“This year is going to be the first year in a very long time where we’re producing more oil and natural gas here in this country than we’re importing,” Obama told reporters in the White House briefing room. “That’s a big deal.”
The administration has also begun work on new efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, assure Environmental Protection Agency oversight of small streams and put limits on risky Wall Street betting.
New gun control laws, immigration reform and the president’s other major priorities, however, have largely stalled in Congress.
The Senate rejected a law expanding background checks earlier in the year, effectively ending Congress’s work on the issue.
Not mandating more background checks in the wake of the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., last year was “a mistake,” Obama said. But he added that the effort helped to raise a national discussion on gun laws, and he praised “all the work that’s been done at state levels to increase gun safety and to make sure that we don’t see tragedies like that happen again.”
In the last year, state legislatures have passed 109 gun bills, according to USA Today, including increased background checks and assault weapons bans. Not all state efforts put new limits on gun ownership, however. Kansas and Alaska passed new laws nullifying federal gun control regulations for guns that are built and remain in the states.