I agree, they are the same. I believe we have real economic and security reasons to encourage domestic production of energy. I favor them as long as they treat energy sources equally and let the market work out the most economic method of providing that energy. The government's job should be to get out of the way of that production regardless if it means oil platforms off California and Florida or Windmills in Ted Kennedy's view.
:’) While the Kennedy family opposes those windmills, recently Teddy dumped oil from his yacht into the pristine waters. :’D There are a bunch of FR topics, because so many fail to check and/or the search engine fails to turn ‘em up. :’)
IMV, the approach to use is to get rid of retail gasoline taxes, and put on a $10 (for example) a barrel tax on petroleum imports *and* exports. That would make US production uncompetitive on world markets, keeping it here, and build in a $10 a barrel cushion (or subsidy, as some would say) for domestic production. This (with other gov’t obstacles to production removed) would result in much more domestic production. It would also build in a cushion (or subsidy) for alt-fuels, since oil would be $10 a barrel more expensive than market.
As the OPEC nations would find out, gradual removal of the US from the petroleum market would more than offset the rise in demand among industrializing countries, including China and India.