Our current oil situation is, in large part, a problem of insufficient refinery capacity. Not only the closure of a large number of refineries in the last 20 years, but the lack of new construction can be directly laid at the doorstep of environmental organiations who lobbied to have that construction stopped or refineries closed.
Sometimes it was only a new reformulation of fuels which made a refinery refit necessary to comply with the new environmental standards, (which have been a moving target) which made a refinery uneconomical. Many were dismantled and sold to the third world, just as steel plants and assembly lines were sold to the Chinese.
The continuous assault against American "Big" oil, has led to the prices you see at the pump, and this was just a small part of the larger Communist effort to weaken American industry.
It is still going on, as there are numerous Communist/Socialist nations in the world, not the least of which is China.
Thanks Smokin' Joe. Very well put.