WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for a one-third reduction in U.S. oil imports by 2025, reviving a long-elusive goal of reducing America's dependence on foreign supplies as political unrest rocks the Middle East and gasoline prices rise at home.
Tackling an issue that has vexed nearly every U.S.
president since Richard Nixon, Obama said the country can't solve the problem
with quick fixes and political gimmicks. But he offered little in the way of
new initiatives, relying instead on a litany of energy proposals he's already
called for, including boosting domestic oil production, increasing the use of
biofuels and natural gas, and making vehicles more energy efficient.
Obama also embraced nuclear power as a critical
part of America's energy future, despite increased safety concerns following
the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that severely damaged a nuclear power plant
there. He vowed a thorough safety review of all U.S. plants, incorporating
lessons learned from Japan, but said nuclear power still holds enormous
potential for the U.S.
"We can't simply take it off the table,"
Obama said during a nearly hour-long speech at Georgetown University.
Moving the U.S. away from its dependence on foreign
oil and toward clean energy technologies was a key part of the domestic agenda
Obama outlined in his January State of the Union address. That agenda has since
been overshadowed by events around the world, from the uprisings in the Middle
East and subsequent U.S. military intervention in Libya to the humanitarian and
nuclear crisis in Japan.
But with gas prices on the rise as the president
readies his reelection bid, the White House wants to regain its footing on
domestic issues before public anger over the spike in energy costs take hold.
Gas prices have jumped more than 50 cents a gallon this year, reaching a
national average of $3.58 a gallon last week, according to AAA's daily survey.
Republicans have placed the blame for the spike in
prices on Obama's policies, arguing that the administration has been too slow
in approving new permits for oil drilling and calling on the president to open
up areas along the Atlantic Coast and near Alaska, where drilling its currently
banned.
"The problem is that Democrats don't want us
to use the energy we have," Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell said
Wednesday. "It's enough to make you wonder whether anybody in the White
House has driven by a gas station lately."
The president struck back at that criticism during
his speech, noting that his administration has approved 39 shallow-water
drilling permits since new standards were put in place last year following the
Gulf oil spill, and seven new deep-water drilling permits in recent weeks.
"So any claim that my administration is
responsible for gas prices because we've shut down oil production might make
for a useful political sound bite, but doesn't track with reality," Obama
said.
Even if Obama's efforts can reduce U.S. demand for
foreign oil, experts say they're unlikely to bring down the cost of gasoline,
since oil is priced globally and increased demand from China and other
developing nations continues to push prices up.
Obama acknowledged that he's far from the first
U.S. president who has set out to put the U.S. on a path toward energy
independence. Richard Nixon made the case for energy independence in 1973 after
Arab oil producers cut off supplies in response to U.S. support of Israel in
the Mideast war.
"Presidents and politicians of every stripe
have promised energy independence but that promise has so far gone unmet,"
Obama said. "That has to change. We cannot keep going from shock to trance
on the issue of energy security, rushing to propose action when gas prices rise,
then hitting the snooze button when they fall again."
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, seeking to explain why
Obama's push for energy independence would succeed where others had failed,
said Obama's timeline is realistic given recent advances in the clean energy
sector.
"I think technologically, we're much closer
than we ever were," he told reporters at the White House.
However, David Pumphrey, deputy director of the
Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, said the prospect of Obama making good on his energy
independence goals are much about politics as it is about technology.
"I don't think that the political nexus has
yet changed enough," Pumphrey said. "What we've needed to do in terms
of increased domestic production and greater efficiency has been pretty clear
since Nixon's days."
Obama's proposal for boosting domestic oil relies
in part on offering incentives to companies that hold leases for offshore and
onshore drilling to speed up production. An Interior Department report released
Tuesday said more than two-thirds of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico are
sitting idle, neither producing oil and gas nor being actively explored by the
companies who hold the leases. The department said those leases could potentially
hold more than 11 billion barrels of oil and 50 trillion cubic feet of natural
gas.
Obama also called for expanding the development of
oil alternatives, including natural gas and advanced biofuels, which are fuels
made from non-food sources such as wood chips, switch grass or plant waste.
Advanced biofuels, however, are still in their infancy and cannot yet be made
in amounts similar to corn ethanol.
The president also ordered government agencies to
ensure that by 2015, all new vehicles they purchase are alternative-fuel
vehicles, including hybrid and electric. Obama has previously set a goal of
putting 1 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015.
Administration officials said Obama's plans would
require significant spending on research and development, though they offered
no cost estimates
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
