In his speech Wednesday on the Iraq invasion, President Bush told the nation, in effect, that almost everyone would be hurt by the gushers of higher oil prices that erupted around the country. He didn’t mention, however, that some would be hurt more than others, or that Mainers might be hurt most of all.

A report by the Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition announced the bad news Thursday that a 50 percent hike over the 1989 oil prices would cost Maine an nation-leading average increase of $349 per person annually, compared with the $241 per person national average. Four New Engalnd states are among the top six most affected by the increases, according to the report, making the entire Northeast neighborhood an unhappy place. But there is good news in that the nation can avoid the 50-percent increase in oil prices if the Bush administration moves quickly to open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The reserve, a 600 million-barrel supply of oil stored in salt domes in Texas and Louisana, was designed for the sort of event that the United States is experiencing now. The supply is large to replace for more than two years the oil that had been coming from Iraq and Kuwait. President Bush has been slow to tap the supply for fear of tampering with oil prices. The reserve, however, could be used effectively as a temporary bridge to prevent oil companies from panicking until other oil sources could be put on line.

Gov. John McKernan was right to join the Maine Oil Dealers Association in asking the president to use the reserve. The governor accurately observed that the assurance of having the reserve simply as an option could reduce the amount of price speculation on the commodity market. But the governor ccould go further by using the events in the Middle East as just cause for finding alternative fuel sources for Maine.

The state is far too dependent on oil for its electricity. Other methods for heating homes or fueling cars have rarely made it out of the prototype stage because oil traditionally has been cheap. (Although its unspoken costs are becoming apparant as 50,000 U.S. soldiers amass in the desert of Saudi Arabia to defend this country’s supply of oil.)

When the state Office of Energy Resources was dismantled last year, Maine accepted, seemingly without regret, its heavy addiction to oil. We’re paying for that addiction now through higher prices, and have no choice but to ask the federal government not to cut off our supply.