Less than a week after warning in his State of the Union address that our nation is "addicted to oil," President Bush offered the country a proposal to -- of all things -- drill for more oil.

		Larry Schweiger, a Pittsburgh resident, is president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation.

The president is trying to breathe new life into a tired old plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- one of America's wildest natural places -- to oil drilling. Apparently, Washington, D.C., is the only place in the country where it makes sense to break an addiction by feeding the habit.

All of last year, desperate drilling backers tried to pass the Arctic Refuge scheme as an add-on to an unrelated budget bill. When that failed, they threatened to withhold funding for American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan until the scheme passed. Thanks to a strong public outcry, they failed, as they have several times before. As of today, the Arctic Refuge drilling scheme is dead, and good riddance.

So why is the Bush administration bent on reviving it?

The answer is a testament to the powerful hold that special interests have on Washington. In this case, it's the well-funded lobbying machine of the oil and gas industry, which is enjoying a year of record-busting profits while American families are struggling to cope with soaring energy costs.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of big oil's lobbying largesse has been Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum. He's received more money from the oil and gas industry in the 2006 election cycle than any other senator -- $79,300, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Sen. Santorum says he rejects the culture of special-interest favors in Washington. If that's the case, he ought to turn big oil's lobbyists away at the door and tell his Washington colleagues that the Arctic Refuge drilling scheme has no place on this year's legislative agenda.

Clean energy and clean government go hand in hand.

Here's something Exxon doesn't want you to hear: If Congress took the billions in subsidies it currently awards to the oil and gas industry and instead invested them in technology to make cars go farther on a gallon of gasoline, the administration's stated goal of breaking America's oil addiction would actually be within reach.

Improving American automobile efficiency by just three miles a gallon would conserve more than 1 million barrels of oil each day -- more than would ever be recovered from the Arctic Refuge -- while saving Americans $25 billion a year at the pump.

The reason we haven't seen tighter fuel economy standards pass in Congress is the power of well-funded special interests. The reason we're paying so much at the pump, on the other hand, is because oil supply simply can't keep up with demand. This isn't a problem we can drill our way out of. The United States sits atop just three percent of the world's oil reserves -- including what lies beneath the refuge -- but consumes one-fourth of the world's daily oil production. No amount of domestic drilling is going to bridge that gap.

Hoping that gas prices will fall on their own is wishful thinking, too.

Oil prices are set on the world market, and India and China's demand for oil is soaring, which means prices here in America will rise far into the future.

The only way to insulate ourselves against higher oil prices is to use less of it, which we can do by improving auto efficiency and expanding our use of renewable fuels, like wind and solar. Nobody expects we'll completely wean ourselves off of oil anytime soon, but with the right leadership, we can permanently reduce consumption by the amount we currently import from the Middle East.

On the other hand, oil from the Arctic Refuge, even by the most optimistic estimates, would have virtually no impact on prices in the world market, according to the Bush administration's own Department of Energy.

It's also important to remember that every step we take to free ourselves of our oil addiction will help reduce the threat of global warming, fed by the carbon pollution released when any fossil fuel is burned.

As for Exxon, don't worry, it'll be fine without the Arctic Refuge. The company just posted an annual profit of more than $36 billion -- a record for an American company. Now more than ever, allowing it to exploit a virtually unspoiled landscape -- our children's rightful natural inheritance -- would constitute the mother of all lobbying giveaways. We can do better.

The Arctic drilling scheme is designed to serve special interests, not the nation's interests. Sen. Santorum can do the oil industry's bidding, or he can make sure that, in the year ahead, Congress abandons the Arctic drilling scheme in favor of real energy solutions.

For Pennsylvania's sake and the nation's, let's hope he makes the right choice.