What you are missing is that innnovation and implementation of new production technology have nothing to do with the current (or past) occupant of the White House. As long as there is money to be made, creative and risk tolerant companies and individuals will find a way to make it. The occupant of the White House is unfortunately the baneficiary of these events. People who do not understand the industry (such as yourself) for some reason draw a causal connection between the current politicians in power and economic strides made by private industry in spite of their policies.
But just give the EPA a couple of more years and they will figure out a way to screw it up.
I do not make a casual connection. Bush is/was an oil man, was he not? 9/11 happened on his watch and had the (albiet temporary) support of the people and Congress to get off our dependence of ME oil.
He knew the industry well and how critical energy independence was as a national goal. There were and are tons of money to be made in oil, on top of windfall tax revenues for the spendthrifts in gov’t.
The only thing that could have stopped it was either technology was not advanced enough, which you allude to already, or the political will to overcome the environmentalists was not strong enough.
At any rate, gov’t policies do matter and can make or break companies or stiffle, if not grind to a halt, business development. That is not to say gov’t can repeal the laws of supply and demand. But they sure can throw a wrench in the works.
I see from a quick glance at some of the other posts that I had not read previously that technology has much improved in recent years.
That answers most of the questions for me.