3) New technologies such as fracking and shale oil extraction techniques are profitable at the $40-45/ barrel level. Producers can be up and running very quickly. If somehow, no oil came to the US from abroad, the US theoretically is quite self sufficient. American foreign policy is not constrained by the energy realities of the 1970s, 80’s and 90’s.
Who told you that?
The US Dept. of Energy states that ex situ processing is economic at $54/barrel and in situ processing at $35/barrel. Once the drilling horizontal or vertical has been completed and the capital investment made, reactivation of a site is not a prolonged process. This industry however is subject to environmental constraints and the attitude of those controlling Federal and State regulatory agencies. The point is that this new technology has at a price, that with R&D ought to decline, put the US in a far different political and economic position than it was in fifteen years ago. Foreign policies have not yet reflected those changes but inevitably will soon.