Get serious about oil, report demands

PASADENA, Calif., Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Political upheavals in the Middle East are causing a spike in crude oil prices, meaning California needs to end its addiction to oil quickly, a report finds.

The price of crude oil is reaching levels not seen since the onset of the global financial meltdown in 2008 as unrest grips much of the Middle East. Energy officials said during the Egyptian revolution that energy supplies were fine, though new concerns surfaced because of unrest in Bahrain.

A report from the California Transportation Partnership calls on California to lead the way in energy independence by reducing its dependence on foreign oil. The state is called on to get 26 percent of its energy from alternative resources by 2022, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

California gets more than 40 percent of its oil from the Middle East. Former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, one of the report's directors, said Washington has paid lip service to energy independence since the oil embargo in the 1970s.

"When the price of oil goes up, we look for alternatives; then the price of oil goes down, and everything stops," he was quoted as saying. "We've been on this roller coaster ride since the 1970s."

The United States imported 30 percent of its oil in the 1970s. The California report finds that has now doubled. The United States imports most of its oil from Canada, however.