WASHINGTON – The U.S. should lessen its strategically perilous dependence on Middle East petroleum by promoting processing technologies that could render fuel from agricultural wastes, grasses and indigenous crops, former CIA director James Woolsey said in testimony before the House energy subcommittee Friday.

"We have to realize that the United States' fuel and energy distribution and transmission systems will almost certainly be subject to attack," Woolsey said. "We ought to always be looking at ways to decentralize and make more flexible and less fragile our energy distribution network."

According to a United Press International report, Woolsey called for a greater reliance on renewable fuels and alternative energy for transportation. Transportation currently accounts for roughly 60 percent of U.S. oil demand. The former CIA director, who has recently suggested that Iraq is behind the terrorist assaults on American, said the United States' dependence on foreign oil, and particularly the world's dependence on oil from the Middle East is "bad and getting worse."

"The Middle East, outside of Israel and Turkey (which have no oil producing capacity) is composed of pathological predictors or vulnerable autocrats," he said. "This is not a recipe for long term stability."

Renewable and alternative fuel credits are needed to spur consumer acceptance, he said, adding that the U.S. need to take a closer look at technologies that can create fuels from various forms of waste, including agricultural waste from packing plants and pig farms.
The technologies can be used to produce cellulosic ethanol, a fuel that could be created from virtually any plant or plant product.

"Remember that biomass ethanol doesn't come from the Middle East and it
doesn't contribute to global warming," Woolsey said.

Woolsey also said he thinks America should drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and save it for emergency needs. He cautioned however, that officials would first need to lessen the vulnerability of the Alaskan pipeline, which was recently punctured by a hunter's rifle. Quoting environmental author Hunter Lovins, Woolsey said the pipeline is so vulnerable "it is like a 900-mile piece of Chapstick."