UPDATE: Obama pushes energy plan at Allison plant

President Barack Obama pushed his national energy plan with a tour of an Indianapolis transmission plant.

Obama toured the Allison Transmission plant and met with workers Friday. It was his fifth trip to Indiana since becoming president.

The plant, which manufactures hybrid-propulsion systems for buses, along with heavy-duty transmissions, is expected create 205 new jobs by 2013.

Obama renewed his push for increased production of clean energy technology earlier this year after he and Democrats suffered a self-described "shellacking" in last year's mid-term elections.

Among the political concessions Obama has included in his new energy plan is a call for more nuclear energy and increased drilling offshore for oil and gas.

Obama arrived in Indianapolis about 11:30 a.m., where Gov. Mitch Daniels was among those meeting him at the airport.

Daniels is considering whether to enter the race for the Republican nomination against Obama next year, and Friday's greeting was the first time he's met Obama during any of his five trips to Indiana since becoming president.

Obama and Daniels spoke for a few minutes after he stepped off Air Force One in a group that also included Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and Butler University basketball coach Brad Stevens.

Obama then jogged over to shake hands with some members of the public who came to watch the president's arrival before his motorcade left for Allison Transmission on the city's west side.

The president promoted his clean energy agenda while offering an optimistic assessment of the economy's growth. April's labor market report marked the third straight month in which more than 200,000 jobs were created, the best three-month hiring spree in five years and a sign of increasing confidence in the private sector.

"We've made this progress at a time when our economy's been facing some serious headwinds," the president told workers, citing high gas prices and the earthquake in Japan.

"There will undoubtedly be some more challenges ahead, but the fact is that we are still making progress," he said. "And that proves how resilient the American economy is, and how resilient the American worker is, and that we can take a hit and we can keep on going forward."

Without bin Laden's death to overshadow it, the trip to Indianapolis to showcase a transmission plant that produces systems for hybrid vehicles would have policy and political consequences. Obama has been promoting his energy policies as a long-term answer to rising oil prices and U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The skyrocketing cost of gasoline had caused Obama's public approval numbers to dip until bin Laden's death shoved them back up. What's more, Indiana is a battleground state that Obama won narrowly in 2008, by less than 30,000 votes.