A week after President George W. Bush urged Americans to think twice about using their cars for non-essential trips, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the onset of winter made energy efficiency all the more important.

As a result of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, "Americans can expect to see higher energy costs: higher costs to heat and power our homes, our schools, as well as our places of business", he said at the campaign's launch.

The "Easy Ways to Save Energy" campaign is fronted by a comic-book villain called Energy Hog, a voracious half-pig, half-human who "can suck the energy out of your home faster than you can say, 'why did the lights go out Mom?'".

Despite the Bush administration's previous scornful dismissal of fuel-efficiency campaigners, Bodman said the Department of Energy had always taken energy conservation seriously.

"But the need to use energy more wisely is particularly acute this year because of the higher prices that we expect to see," he said.

A campaign guide for consumers says Energy Hog can be beaten through a variety of means such as better home insulation, long-life light bulbs, taking showers rather than baths and using power-hungry appliances at night.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita appear to have engineered what environmental groups and the California energy crisis of 2001 could not: forcing the White House to ask Americans to cut back on wasteful fuel consumption.

Asked four years ago if Americans should change their energy-thirsty lifestyles, Vice President Dick Cheney said: "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

Cheney, who like Bush is a former oil man, was unveiling a new energy policy that calls for the building of 1,300 fossil-fuel power plants over two decades combined with an ambitious programme of oil and gas exploration.

But now, with oil and petrol prices soaring and several US refineries knocked out by the hurricanes, the administration says households and businesses alike need to think hard about their energy use.

Daniel Lashof, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said every measure helped in the short term.

But in the long run, he said, the United States must reduce its use of fossil fuels and make its cars and factories far greener if it is serious about energy efficiency.

"These are steps that the administration has not only failed to encourage but has actively opposed. Its policy is primarily driven by its friends in the energy industry," Lashof told AFP.

Bodman said the Department of Energy and its partner in the campaign, the Alliance to Save Energy, would broadcast a series of radio announcements to advise consumers on how to save energy in the home as well as petrol in cars.

"We have had a severe disruption the last two weeks with the energy infrastructure of this country. We have been hurt," the secretary said, while playing down fears of a sharp economic slowdown.

"We do not believe that we are going to be dealing with a recession or anything of that sort. This is a very strong economy," he said.

Bodman also reiterated the administration's intention to tap into US strategic reserves of oil if needed.

There are tentative signs that Americans are changing their habits.

Sales of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles (SUVs) have slumped in recent months. Bicycle sales in contrast have boomed.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.