WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of prominent U.S. business executives and national security figures will visit China next month as part of their drive to reduce U.S. dependence on oil.

Members of the private Energy Security Leadership Council will discuss possible U.S.-Chinese cooperation on oil security-related issues, said retired Navy Admiral Dennis Blair, a former U.S. director of national intelligence.

“Can’t we work on them (oil security issues) together?” Blair said his fellow travelers would ask at meetings with Chinese government officials and business leaders. He cited what he called parallel U.S. and Chinese oil-market interests, including securing supplies at “a reasonable price.”

Blair was the top U.S. intelligence official from January 2009 until his resignation was requested by President Barack Obama in May after an alleged al-Qaeda airliner bombing attempt and an attempted car bombing of New York’s Times Square.

He disclosed the China trip in an interview with Reuters after joining fellow council members to release sweeping recommendations designed to create a less oil-dependent U.S. transportation system.

“Reliance on petroleum has created unsustainable risks to American economic and national security,” said the council’s report, titled Transportation Policies for America’s Future.

The trip in mid-March will bring council members to a seminar with the Energy Research Institute of China’s National Development and Reform Commission. Discussions will include “new energy development and China-U.S. cooperation,” said Justin Kitschin, a spokesman for Securing America’s Future Energy, the council’s parent group. He did not spell out which other council members would join Blair on the trip.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of prominent business executives and national security figures will visit China next month as part of their drive to reduce U.S. dependence on oil.

Members of the private Energy Security Leadership Council will discuss possible U.S.-Chinese cooperation on oil security-related issues, said retired Navy Admiral Dennis Blair, a former director of national intelligence.

“Can’t we work on them (oil security issues) together?” Blair said his fellow travelers would ask at meetings with Chinese government officials and business leaders. He cited what he called parallel U.S. and Chinese oil-market interests, including securing supplies at “a reasonable price.”

Blair was the top U.S. intelligence official from January 2009 until his resignation was requested by President Barack Obama in May after an alleged al-Qaeda airliner bombing attempt and an attempted car bombing of New York’s Times Square.

He disclosed the China trip in an interview with Reuters after joining fellow council members to release sweeping recommendations designed to create a less oil-dependent U.S. transportation system.

“Reliance on petroleum has created unsustainable risks to American economic and national security,” said the council’s report, titled Transportation Policies for America’s Future.

The trip in mid-March will bring council members to a seminar with the Energy Research Institute of China’s National Development and Reform Commission. Discussions will include “new energy development and China-U.S. cooperation,” said Justin Kitschin, a spokesman for Securing America’s Future Energy, the council’s parent group. He did not spell out which other council members would join Blair on the trip.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of prominent U.S. business executives and national security figures will visit China next month as part of their drive to reduce U.S. dependence on oil.

Members of the private Energy Security Leadership Council will discuss possible U.S.-Chinese cooperation on oil security-related issues, said retired Navy Admiral Dennis Blair, a former U.S. director of national intelligence.

“Can’t we work on them (oil security issues) together?” Blair said his fellow travelers would ask at meetings with Chinese government officials and business leaders. He cited what he called parallel U.S. and Chinese oil-market interests, including securing supplies at “a reasonable price.”

Blair was the top U.S. intelligence official from January 2009 until his resignation was requested by President Barack Obama in May after an alleged al-Qaeda airliner bombing attempt and an attempted car bombing of New York’s Times Square.

He disclosed the China trip in an interview with Reuters after joining fellow council members to release sweeping recommendations designed to create a less oil-dependent U.S. transportation system.

“Reliance on petroleum has created unsustainable risks to American economic and national security,” said the council’s report, titled Transportation Policies for America’s Future.

The trip in mid-March will bring council members to a seminar with the Energy Research Institute of China’s National Development and Reform Commission. Discussions will include “new energy development and China-U.S. cooperation,” said Justin Kitschin, a spokesman for Securing America’s Future Energy, the council’s parent group. He did not spell out which other council members would join Blair on the trip.

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) – The U.S. government should make cutting reliance on oil a main thrust of its transportation policies to protect economic and national security, a group of business and military figures said on Wednesday.

The group, the Energy Security Leadership Council, is proposing sweeping recommendations for U.S. congressional action.

The council says reducing oil consumption should be a key yardstick for the U.S. Transportation Department in evaluating policy proposals.

“Oil dependence is a national security issue, and it deserves to be treated as such,” said a statement from two prominent council members, FedEx Corp (FDX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chief Executive Officer Frederick Smith and retired U.S. Navy Admiral Dennis Blair, a former director of national intelligence.

Both the Senate and House of Representatives are set to consider a new long-term transportation bill.

Federal surface transportation legislation, which funds more than $50 billion a year in highway and transit programs, expired in September 2009. The latest in a series of short-term extensions is set to expire on March 4.

The council says reliance on petroleum has created “unsustainable risks” to American economic and national security, despite recent progress to improve the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks, and the emerging shift toward alternative energy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Any fiscal plan that fails to tackle U.S. military spending, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is “a sparrow’s belch in the midst of a typhoon,” a chairman of a presidential deficit-reduction commission said in an interview aired on Sunday.

Former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson, Republican co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, also trashed certain critics as “jerks” and compared the United States to “a milk cow with 300 million teats.”

“If you have a career politician get up and say, ‘I know we can get this done; we’re going to get rid of all earmarks, all waste, fraud, and abuse, all foreign aid, Air Force one, all congressional pensions,’ that’s a sparrow’s belch in the midst of a typhoon,” Simpson told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

President Barack Obama created the bipartisan, 18-member commission to address U.S. fiscal challenges centered around a deficit of more than $1.3 trillion, the highest since World War Two, and a record federal debt now topping $14 trillion.

A bold budget-balancing plan floated by Simpson — long noted for earthy, sometimes off-color remarks — and his fellow co-chairman, Erskine Bowles, fell short in December of the support needed from panel members to trigger congressional action.

“So I’m waiting for the politician to get up and say, there’s only one way to do this, you dig into the big four: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and defense,” Simpson said. “And anybody giving you anything different than that, you want to walk out the door, stick your finger down your throat and give them the green weenie.”

Simpson and Bowles recommended Social Security benefit cuts via a higher retirement age, lower annual cost-of-living adjustments and a change in the way benefits are calculated.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Any fiscal plan that fails to tackle military spending, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is “a sparrow’s belch in the midst of a typhoon,” a chairman of a presidential deficit-reduction commission said in an interview aired on Sunday.

Former Senator Alan Simpson, Republican co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, also trashed certain critics as “jerks” and compared the United States to “a milk cow with 300 million teats.”

“If you have a career politician get up and say, ‘I know we can get this done; we’re going to get rid of all earmarks, all waste, fraud, and abuse, all foreign aid, Air Force one, all congressional pensions,’ that’s a sparrow’s belch in the midst of a typhoon,” Simpson told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

President Barack Obama created the bipartisan, 18-member commission to address fiscal challenges centered around a deficit of more than $1.3 trillion, the highest since World War Two, and a record federal debt now topping $14 trillion.

A bold budget-balancing plan floated by Simpson — long noted for earthy, sometimes off-color remarks — and his fellow co-chairman, Erskine Bowles, fell short in December of the support needed from panel members to trigger congressional action.

“So I’m waiting for the politician to get up and say, there’s only one way to do this, you dig into the big four: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and defense,” Simpson said. “And anybody giving you anything different than that, you want to walk out the door, stick your finger down your throat and give them the green weenie.”

Simpson and Bowles recommended Social Security benefit cuts via a higher retirement age, lower annual cost-of-living adjustments and a change in the way benefits are calculated.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Defense Department and intelligence community vowed on Friday to streamline business with the U.S. suppliers of high-tech eyes, ears and other space hardware deemed critical for national security.

“We seek to foster a U.S. space industrial base that is robust, competitive, flexible, healthy, and delivers reliable space capabilities on time and on budget,” an unclassified summary of a new “National Security Space Strategy” said.

The department and the intelligence community plan to better manage investments to make sure the industrial base can sustain “those critical technologies and skills that produce the systems we require,” said the summary released at the Pentagon.

Among the biggest beneficiaries could be the Pentagon’s top suppliers, led by Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp.

Other likely winners include Orbital Sciences Corp, Ball Corp’s Aeropsace & Technologies unit, Alliant Techsystems Inc and GenCorp’s Aerojet unit, said Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis at Teal Group, a Fairfax, Virginia, consultancy.

The document was signed jointly by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. It builds on other major national security planning carried out under President Barack Obama.

“The National Security Space Strategy represents a significant departure from past practice,” Gates said in a statement. “It is a pragmatic approach to maintain the advantages we derive from space while confronting the new challenges we face.”

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Europe’s EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) each dealt “correctly and professionally” with a U.S. Air Force data mixup in their high-stakes rematch for a refueling-plane deal, an Air Force officer told Congress on Thursday.

The Air Force also has determined that the mixup, in which the rival bidders were sent compact disks in November containing data on each other’s bid, was unintentional, Major General Wendy Masiello testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Air Force is now expected to award a contract worth $25 billion to $50 billion to Boeing or EADS in a matter of weeks or months for an initial 179 tankers, used to refuel other aircraft in flight. It marks the Air Force’s third effort in nearly a decade to start replacing its fleet of KC-135 tankers, which now average more than 50 years old.

As the award nears, jockeying in Congress has spread, partly reflecting the jobs at stake in Washington and Kansas, where Boeing would build and finish its tanker, versus in and around Mobile, Alabama, site of a planned EADS assembly plant.

At issue in the Senate hearing was whether EADS had gained an advantage after one of its employees briefly viewed a summary of an Air Force assessment of the rival Boeing 767-based aircraft’s refueling capabilities.

A bipartisan group of seven senators led by Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, said they believed that the Air Force has attempted to minimize the impact of its mistake from the start. They called on the Defense Department’s inspector general to investigate.

“Today’s hearing did not get at the core of the problem,” Cantwell said in a statement. EADS now has an unfair advantage to adjust its bid to undercut Boeing, she said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A powerful Republican lawmaker criticized the Obama administration’s plan to strip tens of billions of dollars from the Pentagon’s budget and worried that national security considerations were at risk.

Howard “Buck” McKeon, the new chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, questioned President Barack Obama’s plans to pare $78 billion from the Pentagon’s core, $550 billion-plus spending plan from 2012 through 2016.

The savings would in part come from troop reductions starting in 2015 and from cuts to weapons programs that some defense officials have called critical for military missions.

The California Republican, chairing the committee’s first hearing of the new Congress, said he could not ask wartime U.S. forces “to do more with less.”

“The concern I have is that defense spending is being based on budget rather than defense needs,” he told Reuters after the hearing.

Congress holds the power of the purse and many members have balked at plans laid out by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to trim arms programs that provide jobs in their districts, despite Republican calls to rein in government spending.

Arms spending is likely to be one of the main battlegrounds for Obama after he sends his fiscal 2012 budget proposal to Congress the week of February 14. The Defense Department accounts for 19 percent of U.S. federal spending and roughly half of discretionary, non-mandated spending.

WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) – A powerful U.S. Republican lawmaker on Wednesday criticized the Obama administration’s plan to strip tens of billions of dollars from the Pentagon’s budget and cut troop levels.

Howard “Buck” McKeon, the new chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, questioned President Barack Obama’s plans to pare $78 billion from the Pentagon’s core, $550 billion-plus budget from 2012 through 2016.

The California Republican said he could not ask wartime U.S. forces “to do more with less.”

Congress holds the power of the purse and many members have balked at plans laid out by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to trim arms programs that provide jobs to lawmakers’ districts, despite Republican calls to rein in government spending.

Pentagon spending is just one of the many battles Obama faces when he delivers his fiscal 2012 budget proposal to Congress the week of Feb. 14.

McKeon said at his first hearing as the committee chairman that the United States was at a critical juncture in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He contends that additional spending on arms would be a help the U.S. economy.