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Though federal funds have been made available for fuel-cell technology and Ethanol production research and development, little else is happening to reduce our dependence on foreign fuel. Exploration for new domestic sources of oil and gas are still met with lawsuits from radical environmental groups. No new refineries have been built in the United States for three decades. There are still no new orders for U.S. nuclear power plants -- which produce zero harmful emissions -- nor have there been since 1978. The last nuclear plant to go online, Watts Bar 1, in Tennessee, was completed in 1997.

France, China, Japan and Russia have no such reservations and continue building nuclear power plants to produce electricity. To our south, Brazil, a nation of 186 million and a land mass slightly less than the United States, already has two nuclear plants producing 4 percent of its energy needs, and a third plant is under construction.

U.S. politicians and media elites preoccupied with Vice President Cheney's hunting skills may have failed to notice the announcement last week that Brazil will soon bring online the capability of producing enough enriched uranium to meet all of their own energy needs -- and to export the material as well. Next-door neighbor Hugo Chavez, sporting his trademark red beret, applauded the announcement, noting that the nuclear fuel capability creates "further independence from the imperialists" -- meaning, of course, the United States. Last month he advocated construction of a pipeline system to carry Venezuelan and Bolivian natural gas -- not to the United States -- but to the rest of the region.

The full measure of our strategic vulnerability isn't just the price at the pump -- sure to go up in the spring. We must invest not only in new technologies to power our vehicles -- but new exploration for, and exploitation of, hydrocarbon fuels as well. Investment needs to be encouraged in economical processes for cleaning coal, our most abundant fossil fuel. And approval for new nuclear power plants is an absolute necessity. All of this needs to be part of a national energy independence policy -- one that not only protects our environment -- but stops us from fueling our enemies' engines.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

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