A crowd of more than 300 UPS employees and guests welcomed President Barack Obama to the Landover, Md. UPS facility on Friday, April 1.

 President Obama opened his speech joking to the crowd why he and members of his Cabinet were there, “I am thrilled to be here, proud to be joined here today by two of our outstanding Cabinet Secretaries, Steven Chu and Ray LaHood. We’re here today for a simple reason: Ray wasn’t home when they tried to deliver a package yesterday – so we thought we’d just grab it and be on our way.”

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While tomorrow is April Fool’s Day, energy policy is no joke. We’re proud that President Obama chose to discuss his energy policy at UPS. During his visit on April 1, he’ll meet with employees and check out a few of the alternative-fuel vehicles in our fleet.

A key goal of the president’s plan is to limit the country’s dependency on foreign oil by reducing exports by one-third. At UPS, shrinking our overall fuel consumption makes good sense for business and the environment. From 2000 to 2009, we lowered our fuel use by 3.2 million gallons while increasing the miles our drivers traveled by 77.3 million miles. UPS’s fleet of nearly 2,000 alternative-fuel vehicles helped deliver those savings while also reducing overall carbon emissions.

Be sure to return to the upside blog after the president’s visit to see photos and read insights from the event.