Sen. Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that escalating oil prices should be a wake-up call to embark on a 'Manhattan-type project' to free the nation from its dependence on foreign oil.

The Manhattan Project was the U.S.-led program to develop a nuclear weapon during World War II before Nazi Germany could. Energy independence is no less vital than that race for military supremacy in the 1940s, said Sessions, speaking at a joint Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama luncheon at Indian Hills Country Club.

The Mobile Republican called for more off-shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Political pressure is preventing exploration, especially in the Atlantic and Pacific, he said.

'We can't even survey what's out there,' he said. 'But we need to get started now.'

Finding new oil reserves should be just part of a crash program for energy independence, he said. It should also include hundreds of new nuclear plants and research into biofuels and wind and solar power.

'All of these can come together in a way that I think liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, can agree on, and I am hopeful we can agree on new nuclear power plants,' he said. 'It is the lowest form of cost [for energy production] we have; it really emits nothing into the atmosphere and we should be building new nuclear plants.'