As to oil alternatives, there are many. I have worked on some nutty ones (Bio-fuels, great fun) to the more sane. The best, IMHO, is using coal to make synthetic fuel. It is a proven technology, and from an abundant resource in the USA. There is also catalytic conversion of waste products, which can't replaced everything used in oil but does help in turning things like say, waste meat from a packing plant, to some lighter hydrocarbons.
Of course the oil companies don't want coal gas, and have been actively lobbying against it since at least the 1950’s. Old Ike also made a strategic decision to use Saudi oil (Saudi being a recent British creation) in order to drive them into our sphere of influence.
The other partial problem with coal is that it takes a lot of water. You can recover some of it, but the process itself consumes H2O. It has been a while since I played with it, and since I compared it to a traditional oil refinery, but if I remember right it was at least 25% more water intensive. Though I suspect that oil sands use more water in total that either sweet crude or coal conversion.
Again, I will ask you a simple question.
Do you as a person have any right to private property, or does the State's perceived need (or a corporation's lobbying) trump all property rights? For this is what it is really about. The land owners don't want to sell. A foreign owned and managed company, with a majority of non US citizen employees, wants that land (and to not be held accountable for spills).
Does the private citizen have any real property rights?
In other words, private property rights mean nothing to you. Perhaps China might be a more appropriate place for you to reside, then.