WASHINGTON — Gasoline prices will remain high for years to come and will be largely unaffected by a new White House plan to bring them down, Bush administration officials said Sunday.
Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said the United States faced an oil price "crisis" because surging demand from such countries as China and India had outstripped supply, and he predicted that it would be "two to three years before suppliers are in a position to meet the demands."
"The suppliers have lost control of the market," he told NBC's "Meet the Press."
Gas prices approached record highs last week, further angering motorists and putting a scare into lawmakers seeking reelection in six months. The rise in fuel prices is the No. 1 concern of a plurality of Americans, recent polls show.
In response, the administration sent top officials to the Sunday talk shows to promote the White House energy plan, which would, among other steps, reduce the flow of oil into the national strategic reserve, ease regulations on fuel ingredients, and encourage the production and purchase of hybrid vehicles.
But White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten acknowledged that President Bush's program to deal with the price increases would have only a "relatively modest" effect on prices in the short term.
"This is a very large problem," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "It's built up over many years -- decades, in fact. It's not going to be solved in the short run by some silver bullet. There are a lot of policies that need to be put in place over the long run to wean ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil."
The officials said the only lasting solution would be a long-term effort to reduce dependence on foreign oil, which represents about two-thirds of U.S. consumption.
"We need to deal with the long-term problems of technologies that may get us out of this trap," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on ABC's "This Week."
She said that countries' efforts to ensure oil and gas supplies were "distorting international politics." "The quicker we get about the business of reducing our reliance on oil, the better we're going to be."
Administration officials insisted that Bush was not hypocritical in halting deposits to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, even though he attacked Democratic opponent Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election for urging a similar reduction to help cut prices.
