The main excuse you hear time and again is that this country does not have the refining capacity. And you will hear time and again that oil companies are not willing to build billion dollar refineries - YET their profits are up 30% to 40% over the last two years? What's up with that? Are they waiting for the taxpayers to build them?
When it comes right down to it, this is a matter of national security.
Plans are moving forward to build a new refinery in Yuma AZ
Impossible to get a permit and if that happened the legal liability if there is an accident (and they do happen) outweights any potential reward.
Nope, they are saving up for the billions it'll cost 'em to hire the army of lawyers they'll need to battle the leftist environmental nutjobs in court.