WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama Wednesday proposed to cut US oil imports by a third over 10 years, setting an ambitious goal that eluded his predecessors as high gasoline prices threatened to undermine the economic recovery. Unrest elsewhere in the Arab world has helped push US gasoline prices toward $4 a gallon. The United States consumed almost 20 million barrels of oil a day in 2010 of which roughly half was imported. Canada and Mexico are the country's two largest suppliers, followed by Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Obama singled out Canada and Mexico as reliable sources for oil imports and also mentioned Brazil during the speech as a future partner for energy supplies. The US Interior Department estimates millions of acres (hectares) of US energy leases are not being exploited by oil companies and the White House wants that to change. “There are no quick fixes...and we will keep on being a victim to shifts in the oil market until we get serious about a long-term policy for secure, affordable energy,” Obama said. As he rolled out a blueprint on energy security, Obama said the country must curb dependence on foreign oil that makes up roughly half of its daily fuel needs. But previous presidents have made similar promises on energy imports that they failed to meet. Obama laid out four areas to help reach his target of curbing US dependence on foreign oil: lifting domestic energy production, fostering the use of more natural gas in vehicles like city buses, making cars and trucks more efficient, and boosting alternative energy by encouraging biofuels. “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,” he told students at Georgetown University in Washington. He reiterated nuclear power would be a part of the country's long-term energy plan, stressing the lessons from the nuclear disaster in Japan would be studied carefully, while making just passing reference to climate change. According to a Department of Interior report released Tuesday, 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. Those inactive swaths of the Gulf could potentially hold more than 11 billion barrels of oil and 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the department said in the report. Analysts and experts said Obama's goal is ambitious. “All US presidents since the early 1970s have outlined ambitious plans to reduce their reliance on imported oil,” said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Banque Saudi Fransi. Truly reforming US energy use would involve sweeping changes.
