At any time since the "Three Mile Island" farce, we could have replaced virtually all petroleum-generated electricity with nuclear power.
At any time since the original OPEC crisis, we could have advantaged domestic production with tariffs and by other measures.
At any time since Nixon went to China, we could have reversed the disastrous policy of incentivizing China to industrialize, and we still could (and should) wreck their emerging economy by simple legislative and regulatory measures.
Merging the US economy with the rest of the world was and is foolishness in the extreme. The underlying concept seems to be that they will become more like us, when in fact, we are now going to be forced to become more like them.
Well, demand has outpaced supply, as was foreseeable, and we have done everything in our power to ensure demand stays low.
There is a nuclear revitalization program, which George Bush, bless him, actually started all the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) . While a large part of the international community is enthusiastic and has signed on to the program, the US, which started it, is having a very difficult time getting its act together. The US policy has been perverted by bureaucrats and appointees who have their own ideas, incompetence and bunging, inability to explain to Congress what we are trying to do, end of term-itis, where political appointees just want to rest on their laurels (what laurels you may well ask) and do nothing, and the malfeasance of the US congress including Senator Craig (name sound familiar).