At the last presidential debate, Hillary Clinton made a point of saying that the USA was "energy independent." She was wrong. America still imports roughly half of the crude oil that we use each day. That's hardly independence. Now, however, we may be moving towards the point at which we really don't have to import oil. The most recent data out on the Permian basin in Texas indicates that the field may contain about 75 billion barrels of shale oil. To put that in context, the USA uses over 5 billion barrels of oil each year; that's around 2.5 billion barrels produced at home and a similar number imported. Since the size and density of the Permian oil fields is such that they can be produced profitably even at current oil prices, there should soon be a major upturn in American oil production. That is especially true given the policy positions taken by President Elect Trump during the campaign; Trump wants to encourage domestic energy production.
Just imagine what would happen if we stopped spending over 100 billion dollars a year on imported oil. There would be some jobs lost in the oil importing business, but there would be many, many more jobs created in the oil production industry. On top of that, the extra wealth produced here in America would create a ripple effect that will further energize our economy.
The other benefit of a huge increase in domestic production is that the USA would no longer be dependent on foreign oil sources and the world price of oil would stay lower. That would take leverage away from many countries that are not our friends, and it would also lessen the ability of some of the world's biggest sponsors of terrorism to afford that continuing support.
Just imagine what would happen if we stopped spending over 100 billion dollars a year on imported oil. There would be some jobs lost in the oil importing business, but there would be many, many more jobs created in the oil production industry. On top of that, the extra wealth produced here in America would create a ripple effect that will further energize our economy.
The other benefit of a huge increase in domestic production is that the USA would no longer be dependent on foreign oil sources and the world price of oil would stay lower. That would take leverage away from many countries that are not our friends, and it would also lessen the ability of some of the world's biggest sponsors of terrorism to afford that continuing support.
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