Last month, I wrote about natural gas. This month, it’s hard to ignore crude oil. Its price poses a threat to economies around the world. People are up in arms, needless to say, which poses a threat to the industry itself.

Oil is a volatile commodity, yet it is now the perceived safe haven for investors punched by the stock market and credit crisis, or wiped out by the weakening dollar.

Yes, oil is the hottest news story around (except for the Democratic presidential primary). I just learned that TrueTV, a channel owned by Turner Broadcasting System, is filming a one-hour episode about drilling for oil out in the Permian Basin, with two rigs operating for ExL Petroleum Co. the stars.

The young woman from TBS who called me about this was excited. She couldn’t get over telling me how fascinating the oil-drilling business is. She cited how high-tech it is, how dangerous for the rig hands who have to work in all kinds of weather, how challenging and expensive for the financial backers. If an urban Gen Xer far removed from the oil patch is impressed, maybe we are making progress.

Oil and natural gas still account for 65% of the nation’s energy needs today. Even with a fivefold increase in renewable sources like solar and wind power during the next 25 years, they would still make up most of the energy mix, with renewables comprising only 1%.

So, let’s get over our anger at oil and face it. Let’s figure out how to sustain domestic development of our untapped oil and gas resources. Let’s make it economic in light of rising production costs and adverse taxation schemes. Let’s make it cleaner and greener to extract.

As the President rightly said, we are addicted to oil. Trouble is, despite that, and the need to use oil and gas in a greener way, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) indicates that in real dollars, the budget for the Department Of Energy’s energy-research programs declined 85% between 1978 and 2005. That’s called sweeping the problem under the rug.

How astonishing that the Bush Administration’s latest, and last, budget, has absolutely no funding for oil and gas research at DOE. How ironic for a president who was once an independent in Midland. Don’t most academics and oil experts say we will rely on oil and gas for the next 20 years, at least, as a bridge to whatever fuels come next?

“The Energy Department is abandoning the future growth of America’s largest and most vital energy resource,” says IPAA president Barry Russell. “The Administration needs to encourage the development of all viable energy fuels, while simultaneously embracing conservation and efficiency measures…How can we have an Energy Department that ignores America’s largest source of energy?”

Moreover, Russell points out, 85% of the DOE’s research efforts are directed toward independents, who drill 90% of the nation’s oil and gas wells, not toward the majors.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, echoes Russell, saying this administration “has a real blind spot when it comes to developing new domestic natural gas resources.”

The gas that is most available is found onshore, and the key players in developing it are independents who don’t have their own R&D departments.?“If the DOE walks away from the R&D needed to keep natural gas flowing in an economic and environmentally responsible manner, then consumers will pay through higher prices…,” he says.

Most Congressional leaders and presidential candidates want to tax the oil companies, or take away their tax breaks, to fund research on energy alternatives.

But in January, two Texas Democrats introduced a bill that would provide an estimated $1 billion for energy R&D without raising taxes. HR 5146, the Invest in Energy Security Act, was authored by Rep. Nick Lampson and Rep. Chet Edwards.

The bill would suspend the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s royalty-in-kind oil program, and redirect that oil to the open market. This would create a new revenue source to provide funding for energy research.

“Continuing to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is at 98% capacity, with oil that is $91 per barrel is fiscally irresponsible and an inappropriate use of taxpayers’ dollars,” Lampson said when he introduced the bill. He is chairman of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

Included in the legislation is funding for the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA), a non-profit consortium based in Sugar Land, a Houston suburb. It manages technology R&D for oil and gas exploration and production. RPSEA has more than 130 members, including 26 research universities such as Texas A&M, five national laboratories, other major research institutions, large and small energy producers and energy consumers with activities in 27 states.