“Whoever talks about oil independence has to tell a story about how we close a 15-million-barrel gap.”
That’s really a bogus argument. It’d be great if we did become 100% self-sufficient in crude production, but it might not be possible in the foreseeable future.
But doubling our production, from 8 million to 16 million barrels per day could give us enough additional production to keep prices reasonable. And, the ideal situation would be to produce more than we produce now, still buy on the international market, and have a reserve production capacity of a few million barrels to put in play when prices become unreasonable for whatever reason.
Plus, we should develop the alternatives that can be reasonably competitive, and further reduce our need for imported crude with alternatives.
And keeping a boatload of dollars in play in OUR economy.. creating jobs and even taxes..