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WASHINGTON – Bush administration policies toward Latin America may have helped further a wave of socialism in Latin America that now threatens rebuilding relations with the U.S., congressmen and regional experts said Wednesday during a House Foreign Affairs committee hearing.

“Right now it’s impossible to work in the hemisphere because our policy is so out of line in the region,” Inter-American Dialogue President Peter Hakim told the committee.

Key policy failures under President George W. Bush included “putting our drug policy on autopilot” and supporting the failed 2002 coup against President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, according to Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif.

The hearing, intended to discuss President Barack Obama’s agenda for the Fifth Summit of the Americas in April, focused on the proliferation of Chavez-type leftist regimes in Latin America and the impact on the U.S.

The Obama administration should act swiftly in light of upcoming elections that could push the region further left, experts said. Sunday’s presidential election in El Salvador, which include a former Marxist guerilla group turned competitive political party, is just one example, said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind.

“A leftist leader in El Salvador could cause problems in Central America, and we don’t want that,” Burton said.

The State Department should quickly appoint a new undersecretary for the Western hemisphere and reinstate the special envoy to Latin America position that was eliminated by Bush, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said.

Some experts, like Otto Reich, a senior official to three of the last four presidents, suggested the U.S. take a hard-line democratic stance at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

“The forthcoming summit is an opportunity for our president to restate what the United States stands for,” Reich said, “Not all the countries in the hemisphere are good neighbors and we should not delude ourselves.”

But labeling elected governments as socialist or too leftist was a major point of contention for members of the committee.

“I thought we won the Cold War? And I also thought the FMNL in El Salvador were no longer a terrorist threat, said Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass. “I think it’s very dangerous to be labeling all the time.”

Despite political uncertainty in Latin America, congressmen and the experts recommended the U.S. use renewable energy concerns to re-establish good relations.

“We are far too dependent on oil outside our borders,” Reich said, noting that Venezuela is the fourth largest source of U.S. oil.

“We should begin to end our dependence on unstable countries.”