It is and it does. But rather than dealing head on with our congress and the fringe enviromentalist who have stopped drilling and building of more refineries and begin drilling our own oil we do what? Even Jeb stopped it remember? BTW if the Bush’s don’t wish to be seen as having personal interest in certain business areas then perhaps they should have cut those ties perhaps? Not just the M.E. but China as well. But they are very slow learners on that issue it seems yes very slow indeed.
There is no political will in the USA to become energy independent. What I would do is to build nuclear power plants near the border in Mexico and then export the surplus power to us.