Whatever steps the Bush administration can take toward reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil will be welcome.

Perhaps the most quoted line from Tuesday’s State of the Union speech was Bush’s assertion that, “America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.” While many Americans think the nation’s addiction to oil has been obvious for some time, it’s still nice to hear those words in a presidential address.

Even nicer will be to see some concrete results from Bush’s plan to reduce our oil dependence. Observers have pointed out that other presidents have promised to attack this problem with limited results. Bush’s goal is to reduce consumption of oil from the Middle East by 75 percent over the next two decades by making use of new technologies and alternate energy sources.

That may seem like a huge goal, but it isn’t as large as some Americans might suspect. Only about 20 percent of the oil the United States now imports comes from the Middle East. Skeptics have pointed out that, because oil is freely traded on global markets, it would be difficult to selectively stop buying oil that comes from the Middle East rather than Venezuela or Africa, other areas that export far more oil to the United States and have their own stability issues.

It also was notable that Bush didn’t mention the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge in Tuesday’s speech as a possible way to reduce foreign oil dependence. His focus was on alternative power sources such as solar and wind energy and ethanol-based fuels. That’s good news for the nation, and especially Kansas, which has the ability to be a player in the alternative fuels arena. The state is seen as a prime area for wind-powered electrical generators, and Kansas farmers could benefit from the development of fuels that use ethanol produced from grain.

The key is to make alternative fuels a national priority. Bush’s proposed $59 million increase in funding for ethanol technologies seems like a substantial commitment, but time will tell whether this president will be any more successful than his predecessors in accomplishing concrete reductions in oil dependence.

Twenty years from now, when a new administration is in place, Americans won’t be able to hold Bush responsible for his pledge to reduce Middle East oil imports. But acknowledging America’s addiction to oil and the profound impact it has on this nation and its foreign policy may be the first step in solving the problem.