WASHINGTON – President Bush called for construction of more nuclear power plants and urged Congress yesterday to give tax breaks for fuel-efficient hybrid and clean-diesel cars. He also said he was powerless to bring down high gasoline costs.

Calling the problem one of not having enough energy supplies to keep pace with demand, Mr. Bush said technology will provide the answer in the long run by allowing development of more domestic energy sources.

“Technology is the ticket,” Mr. Bush said, calling today’s tight energy markets “a problem that has been years in the making” and will take time to resolve. He said he was determined to spur development of more nuclear power, coal, oil, and renewable energy, and again called on Congress to provide him with a national energy agenda.

“This problem did not develop overnight, and it’s not going to be fixed overnight. But it’s now time to fix it,” Mr. Bush told a group of small-business owners in his second speech on energy in a week.

The high cost of gasoline, followed by a winter of record-high heating bills, has begun to have both economic and political fallout and is believed to be pulling down Mr. Bush’s popularity.

The president said he knows “many people are concerned” about the high gasoline prices that now average more than $2.20 a gallon nationwide, but he lamented that he can’t do anything about it.

“I wish I could,” he said. “If I could, I would.”

In 2000, when he was seeking the Republican nomination for president and oil was nearing $28 a barrel, Bush criticized the Clinton administration for high fuel prices and said the president must “jawbone” oil-producing nations and persuade them to drop rates.

Some congressional Democrats have called on Mr. Bush to use the government’s emergency oil reserves to try to force crude prices down – or at least stop diverting oil into the reserve. The White House repeatedly has rejected such a move, arguing the reserve is only for addressing supply disruptions and should be filled to capacity.

The president did not mention the reserve in his remarks yesterday. Instead, he sought to focus on what senior administration officials acknowledge are long-term fixes aimed at reducing American reliance on oil imports.

Last year, imports accounted for nearly 58% of the 20.5 million barrels of oil used each day, according to the Energy Department. Only about a third of the country’s oil came from imports in 1973, when the Arab oil embargo prompted long lines at gas stations.

“We’ve got a fundamental question we got to face here in America,” Mr. Bush said. “Do we want to continue to grow more dependent on other nations to meet our energy needs? Or, do we need to do what is necessary to achieve greater control of our economic destiny?”