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Obama to put spotlight on energy

President Barack Obama will on Wednesday seek to wrest the political debate from turmoil in the Middle East, to a related topic -- cutting America's thirst for foreign oil.

Obama will make a speech at Georgetown University in Washington to outline his plan to forge energy security for the United States, launching a string of events designed to drum up support for a key piece of his agenda.

Since his State of the Union address in January, Obama has hammered away at the themes of education and job creation, yet events in the Arab world, and after Japan's quake-tsunami tragedy, kept pulling him off topic.

"The speech will mark a transition in our public communications, and kick off a concerted effort around energy security," a senior US official said on condition of anonymity.

Obama will stress four areas where the United States needs to forge progress to reach a goal to cut the amount of oil that the country imports from overseas by a third in 10 years, another official said.

As a candidate and as president, Obama has several times laid out plans to cut US dependence on insecure foreign energy sources, and to wean itself off supplies from nations like Venezuela or regions like the Middle East.

Energy policy, especially in the area of rising gasoline prices has the capacity to be a key political issue over the next year, and into 2012 when Obama runs for a second four-year term.

Administration officials say they want to frame an energy policy that will mean the United States has to import less oil from volatile places such as the Middle East, and to be more self-sufficient in meeting its power needs.

Obama will highlight domestic oil production and argue that huge areas of available oil field leases have not been tapped by the industry.

He will emphasize that the United States also has large reserves of natural gas, which could be developed responsibly, and stress the growing importance of biofuels in feeding US energy needs.

The president will also stress efficiencies, after mandating large cuts in the amount of gas cars use in the first two years of his administration, with new targets for the years 2017 to 2025 expected in September.

Officials said Obama would not make any change to his policy on nuclear power, as debate on the power source rages in the aftermath of a crisis at an atomic plant in Japan damaged by an earthquake and tsunami disaster.

Obama says that nuclear power, given appropriate safety safeguards, is one aspect of a broad menu of energy sources that include natural gas, solar power and renewable energy.

Some analysts see the energy debate as one area in which Obama could find grounds for cooperation with his Republican foes in Congress.

However, Republicans accuse Obama of putting vast areas of potential oil exploration off limits to prospecting, for environmental reasons.

The Republican majority in the House of Representatives has put forward three bills to expand offshore energy production, which it says will create jobs, lower energy prices and lessen US dependence on foreign energy.

The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell meanwhile accused the administration Tuesday of cancelling dozens of oil and gas leases all across America and of barring projects in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.