By ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

It has become clear to most Americans that maintaining our national security will require reducing our dependence on foreign oil. But Republicans are using the current crisis to push through a reckless energy agenda, including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that will not improve America's security. Even the conservative Cato Institute has called President Bush's claim that Arctic oil would reduce gas prices or American dependency on foreign oil "not just nonsense, but nonsense on stilts."

There is a clear and pragmatic way to reduce our dependency fast. Since 40 percent of the oil used by America fuels light trucks and cars, an increase in corporate average fuel economy standards ? called CAFE ? could have a dramatic impact.

In the late 1970's, President Jimmy Carter implemented CAFE standards to combat an oil shortage driven by policies of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The standards raised fuel efficiency in American cars by 7.6 miles a gallon over six years, causing oil imports from the Persian Gulf to fall by 87 percent. Our economy grew by 27 percent during that period. Detroit, predictably, figured out how to build more fuel-efficient cars largely without reductions in size, comfort or power.

The CAFE standards worked so well that they produced an oil glut by 1986. That's when the Reagan administration intervened to rescue America's domestic oil industry from gasoline price collapse. Ronald Reagan's rollback of CAFE standards caused America, in that year, to double oil imports from the Persian Gulf nations and to burn more oil than is in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

According to a recent report by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, if the United States had continued to conserve oil at the rate it did in the period from 1976 to 1985, it would no longer have needed Persian Gulf oil after 1985. Had we continued this wise course, we might not have had to fight the Persian Gulf war, and we would have insulated ourselves from price shocks in the international oil market. Fuel efficiency is a sound national energy policy, economic policy and foreign policy all wrapped into one. Every increase of one mile per gallon in auto fuel efficiency yields more oil than is in two Arctic National Wildlife Refuges. An improvement right now of 2.7 miles per gallon would eliminate our need for all Persian Gulf oil!

Yet the Republican Congress in 1995 made it illegal for the Environmental Protection Agency even to study higher CAFE standards. The result is that America now has the worst energy efficiency in 20 years.

If Congress is serious about ensuring our national security it should immediately pass legislation to raise fuel economy standards to 40 miles a gallon by 2012 and 55 by 2020. This would give automakers ample time to adjust their production. In the meantime, Congress should close the sport utility vehicle loophole by holding S.U.V.'s and minivans to the fuel economy standards for cars; automakers have the technology now to achieve this. Along with the other benefits, higher fuel economy standards could bring increased demand for efficient cars, leading to an increase in motor- vehicle-related jobs. We can also substantially cut gasoline consumption by requiring tire manufacturers to sell replacement tires that are as friction-free as tires on new cars.

We missed a huge opportunity in the 1980's and 1990's to increase our fuel efficiency. If overall energy conservation options available in 1989 were implemented today, each year we would save 54 times the oil that would have been used from the Arctic that year, at a fraction of the price of drilling there.

Mr. Bush's Energy Security Act will actually make us more dependent on foreign oil, and it will place our hopes for national energy security in an insecure pipeline that could even become a terrorist target. There is no reason to wait 10 years for Arctic oil to come on line when a small investment in conservation would quickly reduce American demand for oil.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance.