How feasible are Bush's U.S. energy goals?

WASHINGTON — President Bush set an ambitious goal in his State of the Union address: break the country's addiction to oil and move beyond a petroleum-based economy.

Bush's remarks Tuesday night follow in the path of previous U.S. presidents, including Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, who pledged to limit reliance on foreign oil.

But those goals have remained elusive. In 1973, the United States consumed 17.3 million barrels per day of oil. Today, that number is up to 20.7 million barrels per day. The percentage of imported oil has risen more sharply over the period, increasing from nearly 35 percent to 60 percent.

The current U.S. dependence on oil is deeply rooted in government policies, the economy, national infrastructure and consumer habits. Unless Bush puts forward dramatic initiatives that alter the basic landscape, which now favors gasoline-powered automobiles, experts said, substantive change may be many years away.

"Oil is very deeply entrenched in our economy," said Peter Tertzakian, author of the new book, "A Thousand Barrels a Second: The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World." "And every year, we consume more and more oil, and it becomes more and more entrenched."

That growing demand has made the United States all the more dependent on oil from what Bush called "unstable parts of the world."

Bush's energy push comes at a time when the world is demanding more oil than ever to fuel growing economies. But producers are struggling to keep up, resulting in higher prices and concerns about shortfalls.

The U.S. economy has been burdened by higher oil prices, dulling economic growth. In recent days, oil prices have been flirting with $70 a barrel, partly the result of concerns about how world powers will react to the nuclear ambitions of Iran, a major oil producer.

The president said technological breakthroughs encouraged by his plan "will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

But short of imposing bans or embargoes, the U.S. government can do little to prevent companies from buying oil from any nation they can. White House officials acknowledged Wednesday that their plan would not necessarily reduce imports from the Middle East because that determination is made by market conditions and not U.S. directives.

Additionally, the world's oil market is so interdependent that even if the United States ceased buying oil from all Middle Eastern nations, a disruption in the flow of Middle East oil to other countries would affect American prices.

What is possible is reducing the U.S. dependence on oil by finding alternatives, which the administration hopes to do. Bush's vision — to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past" — would require dramatic changes in the U.S. economy. The plan detailed by the White House would move — albeit slowly — toward that goal.

The president called for more funding for research into new forms of ethanol production, hydrogen and new hybrid vehicle technology, saying those would displace some domestic oil consumption. The administration is calling for $469 million in funding for those measures in 2007, an increase of nearly $119 million.

The White House wants to accelerate research into the production of "cellulosic ethanol" from plant fiber, an abundant renewable resource. The president talked about making the fuel from wood chips, stalks and switchgrass, which is commonly found in North America.

Technology exists to produce that type of ethanol today but not at competitive prices, industry specialists said. Most of the ethanol produced domestically now comes from corn.

The administration wants to make cellulosic ethanol competitive within six years. Proponents say once that happens, automakers would increase production of "flex fuel" vehicles that could run on gasoline or fuels primarily made from ethanol.

The White House estimates the alternative-energy plan would result in a savings of about 5 million barrels per day by 2025. But because oil consumption is continuing to increase, the United States would still use slightly more oil in 2025 than it does today, according to government projections.

Moreover, Bush's specific proposals were relatively modest in dollar terms.

For example, the $148 million pledged for Bush's Solar America initiative is dwarfed by a California program approved last month that commits nearly $3 billion for solar power installations over 11 years.

Craig Stevens, an Energy Department spokesman, said the administration believes that the United States would move away from an oil-based economy sometime after 2025. But the administration could not say when that is likely to occur. "It will take time," Stevens said. "We're taking the first steps now."

Democrats and other administration critics, scorning Bush's speech as hypocritical, noted he has repeatedly opposed efforts to mandate greater energy conservation. The president's comments on alternative energy sources may seem like a departure for a former Texas oilman who has frequently championed additional domestic oil production. But the White House said Bush is standing by his policies of the past, as well: The president continues to support increased oil drilling in the United States, including in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a measure rejected by Congress last year.

While the State of the Union speech contained no reference to ANWR, Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that the administration remains committed to opening the reserve to oil and gas drilling.

Environmentalists dismissed Bush's plans as window dressing that would change little. They said Bush could have made a more significant impact on oil consumption by calling for an increase in automobile mileage requirements.

"The energy package clearly appears to be something that they said, 'OK, what can we cobble together and make it look like we're actually doing something?"' said David Hamilton, a Sierra Club official in Washington.

Rather than mandate energy savings, Bush stayed with the basic approach of his administration, which opposes dictating to private industry. In last year's energy bill, for example, the White House opposed a provision to cut back oil consumption by 1 million barrels a day by 2015.

Instead, administration officials said, automakers and other manufacturers will voluntarily turn to alternative fuels and more energy-efficient products when market forces make it profitable for them to do so.

That approach is too slow, critics said. They pointed out that Bush had given little attention to what many experts consider an indispensable element in any program to cut dependence on foreign oil: conservation.

"He didn't propose anything having to do with energy efficiency, which is something that could help in the next 10 years, while he's developing all these new technologies," Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. "How about making our vehicles more efficient? He didn't mention one thing about that."

Asked why the plan did not call for sacrifice, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said people already were paying a heavy price at the pump and that the best answers would come from private enterprise rather than governmental mandates.

"The way I view it, there's plenty of sacrifice to go around," he said. "The issue is how do we deal with it."