To the Point

Getting to US Energy Independence

Thirty years after the OPEC embargo and a dramatic increase in oil consumption over the past decade, 60 percent of the oil we use is imported. Recent instability in the Middle East and Venezuela dramatizes US vulnerability to disruptions of imported oil. While President Bush has used this insecurity to push for drilling in Alaska's National Wildlife Preserve, critics claim that exploration would heighten tension by creating facilities ideal for terrorist attacks. Does national security require more oil or more conservation? We put the question to Idaho Republican Larry Craig who sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, an energy resource analyst, David Freeman, energy advisor to Governor Gray Davis, and the policy director for the American Petroleum Institute Newsmaker: After Weekend Exile, Venezuela's Chavez Returns Late last week, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez was out. Today, he's back in, and despite widespread looting, a tense calm has spread over the capital city of Caracas. Chavez has appeared on national television to call for national reconciliation. Political analyst Eric Ekvall reports on the off-again on-again presidency of President Chavez and the response of Venezuela's military. Reporter's Notebook: Powell Visits Lebanon and Syria Secretary of State Colin Powell has met with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud in Beirut and Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus to ask them to stop cross-border rocket attacks into Israel. Dr. Fouad Ajami, professor of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins' University, evaluates the growing danger of widening the Middle Eastern conflict.