- Many American adults are worried about their country's reliance on foreign energy sources, according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports. 73 per cent of respondents believe it is very important for the United States to become less dependent on oil imports.

In his Jan. 31 State of the Union address, U.S. president George W. Bush declared, "Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources—and we are on the threshold of incredible advances."

In terms of oil consumption, the U.S. tops the list at some 20 million barrels per day, about half of which is imported. Indeed, the U.S. consumes, in absolute terms, more barrels per day than the next five countries on the list combined. Bush set out his goal "to replace more than 75 per cent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

In 2004, Bush proposed opening less than 10 per cent of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration. According to the White House, the area could potentially provide more than one million barrels of oil each day. 71 per cent of respondents believe it is more important to develop new sources of energy, while 21 per cent prefer to conserve energy.

On Sept. 28, Bush discussed his energy policies, declaring, "One way to become less dependent on foreign oil is to use American-grown products to power our automobiles. (...) As a matter of fact, there's a lot of cars in the United States that are flex-fuel (the ability to either use ethanol-based fuel or regular gasoline), and some of you probably don't even know you've got a car that's flex-fuel. It doesn't cost much money, by the way, to convert a regular automobile, an automobile that uses gasoline, to a flex-fuel car."

Polling Data

Do you think it is very important that the United States become less dependent on oil imports?

What is more important, conserving energy or developing new sources of energy?

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