Energy proposal reduces oil imports
Obama calls for more biofuel use, U.S. drilling
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama outlined Wednesday a plan to reduce oil imports to the United States by one-third over the next 10 years, calling for further oil and gas drilling at home, development of biofuels and greater fuel efficiency in new cars and trucks.
Independent experts said they heard little in the speech that was new. But it did pull together seemingly disparate and incremental efforts in energy production and fuel efficiency the administration has decribed before and focused them on a single, concrete goal of reducing oil imports, those experts said.
With gas prices climbing largely because of unrest in the Middle East, the White House seems eager to defuse Republican criticism about the pain high fuel prices have inflicted on average Americans and alleged inaction on the issue by the administration.
Obama vowed to reduce imports in part by accelerating domestic production of oil and gas on millions of acres that oil companies had leased but not drilled on. He also called for using natural gas and biofuels, including ethanol, as a replacement for gasoline in vehicles and said that he would direct federal agencies to buy 100 percent alternative-fuel vehicles by 2015. The president asserted that all forms of power generation must remain under consideration, including nuclear power, despite the current nuclear crisis in Japan..
The U.S. imported about 11 million of the nearly 20 million barrels a day it consumed in 2008, the year the president is using as his benchmark.
Implicit in the speech was the U.S. desire to lessen its dependence on the autocracies of the Middle East, which account for a major share of global oil production.
Most oil industry trade groups and Republican politicians criticized the speech for not doing enough to open new territories to oil and gas drilling and for not speeding up approval of drilling permits to the levels where they were before the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In a highly partisan political climate, the administration may have to rely on executive orders to carry out some of its program.