Obama's new plan...

Washington - Democrat Barack Obama has laid out an ambitious energy plan that envisions ending US dependence on foreign oil in 10 years - a bid to blunt apparent progress Republican opponent John McCain is making with American voters struggling with budget-wrecking fuel costs.

During a speech on Monday in Lansing, Michigan, Obama reversed course, calling for the release of 70 million barrels of crude oil held in federal stockpiles as a short-term means of lowering gasoline prices.

The Illinois senator earlier opposed dipping into the Strategic Energy Reserve held in Texas and Louisiana salt caverns.

Late last week, Obama also reversed course - to a degree - on his opposition to ending a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil along America's coastline. On Friday, he said he could accept limited and environmentally sound offshore exploration as part of a larger energy compromise that was being formulated in congress.

The struggling American economy and skyrocketing energy costs are top voter concerns, and McCain has made headway in the White House contest by calling for an end to the drilling ban.

Until changing his position, Obama had steadfastly opposed the measure, citing general agreement among energy experts that the new supplies would be years in reaching gasoline pumps.

McCain's campaign called Obama's switch a "flip-flop", despite the Republican candidate's own earlier opposition to lifting the ban.

As he rolled out his energy programme, Obama also bought television time nationally for a new ad that suggests McCain would be "in the pocket of Big Oil", a continuation of the Democrat's push to link the veteran Arizona senator to President George W Bush's administration and its perceived bias in favour of major energy companies.

Twisting facts

The McCain campaign said Obama was twisting facts.

"It was Senator Obama, not John McCain, who voted for the Bush-Cheney energy bill that was a sweetheart deal for oil companies," said McCain spokesperson Tucker Bounds. "Also not mentioned is the $400 000 from big oil contributors that Barack Obama has already pocketed in this election."

Obama says McCain was given "more than one million dollars from big oil just last month" after he announced support for drilling on the US continental shelf.

While Obama was taking on energy issues, McCain held a small business round table in Pennsylvania and restated the need for offshore drilling. "Anybody who says that we can achieve energy independence without using and increasing these existing energy resources either doesn't have the experience to understand the challenge that we face or isn't giving the American people some straight talk," he said.

The Republican candidate then flew to South Dakota to participate in a tribute to military veterans and active-duty troops at a motorcycle rally in Sturgis.

"As you may know, not long ago a couple hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I'll take the roar of 50 000 Harleys any day," McCain said, referring to Democrat Barack Obama's recent visit to the German capital.

Billed as the largest event of its kind in the world, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally has become something of an annual bikers' Woodstock during the past 70 years.

During his speech, McCain criticised Obama for supporting a timetable for withdrawing US troops from Iraq.

'Tell em' to come back and get to work'

"My opponent wants to set a date to come home. I want us to come home with victory and honour so we will never go back again," he said.

McCain also criticised Congress for adjourning for a five-week recess without approving a new energy plan.

"Tell em' to come back and get to work," McCain said, yelling into the microphone. "When I'm president of the United States, I'm not going to let them go on vacation. They're gonna become energy independent."

During an earlier campaign stop in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, McCain focused on energy policy, which has overshadowed the war in Iraq as a campaign issue. There he mocked Obama's suggestion last week to improve automobile mileage, saying: "We're not going to achieve energy independence by inflating our tyres."

On Tuesday, McCain aims to underscore his call for expanded nuclear power to deal with the US's energy issues by touring a nuclear power plant in the battleground state of Michigan.

Obama, in his Michigan speech, also endorsed long-term work on hybrid cars and renewable energy sources.

"Breaking our oil addiction is one of the greatest challenges our generation will ever face," the Illinois Democrat said, calling the project a "single overarching goal" that he forecast would end US reliance on oil from the Middle East and Venezuela over the next ten years. He put the cost to taxpayers at $150bn.

"It will take nothing less than a complete transformation of our economy," he told a largely friendly audience in the state that is central to the struggling American auto industry.

McCain 'part of that failure'

Obama, who on Monday celebrated his 47th birthday, later told reporters on his campaign plane that "I historically have been very hesitant" to consider tapping into the emergency stockpile. But he said his proposal for oil companies to borrow oil now with a pledge to replace it later in a swap "has merit in terms of just a short-term effect on prices".

Obama said US politicians have failed for three decades to deal with the energy crisis, and that McCain has been "part of that failure".

Obama and McCain are emphasising solutions to the country's energy woes as they seek an advantage in polling that shows the race competitive just weeks before their respective national nominating conventions and the final stretch of the campaign.

The issue cuts across the diverse electorate, resonating with voters of all stripes, and it gives the candidates a way to talk both about domestic and foreign issues.

High fuel prices are causing food and transportation costs to surge, compounding voter disquiet in the weakened economy. The country's dependence on foreign oil has emerged as a pivotal national security concern.

Obama, who as recently as last month argued against tapping into the petroleum reserve located in caverns in Texas and Louisiana, proposed that the government sell 70 million barrels of oil from its stockpiles and said that releases from the reserve in the past have lowered gas prices within two weeks.

He called tapping the petroleum reserves a short-term solution to a long-term problem. The stockpile contains 707 million barrels and was last used shortly after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The petroleum reserve is capable of releasing about four million barrels a day. It's unclear what impact that would have on global oil prices, or the cost of gasoline. But some energy experts say a clear signal by the United States of a willingness to use a significant portion of the reserve could put downward pressure on oil markets at least for a time.

- AP