(Energy) Independence Day

A post in which I surprised readers — and myself — with strong praise for George W. Bush.

Four years ago, President Trump declared that “because of the tremendous progress we’ve made in the last three years, America is now energy independent.” And he was right that the U.S. has reached the point where it produces more energy than it consumes. But the kind of energy independence he trumpeted (or should I say TRUMPETED?) is a chimera.

To be fair, Trump wasn’t the first to prioritize this kind of “energy independence.” (Nor was he the last to achieve it—under Biden, it’s still true that we produce more energy than we use.) Every president since at least George W. Bush, who championed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, has wanted to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Bush said that “one of the most serious long-term challenges facing our country is our dependence on oil, especially foreign oil.”

As I said, this goal is a chimera for two reasons. One reason is quite subtle and I only recently learned about it. Even though we produce more oil than we consume, we still have to import oil. The reason is that we don’t produce enough heavy oil for the refineries, so we export light oil and import heavy oil.

A more fundamental reason is that energy markets are global. Although we produce more oil than we need, U.S. gas prices are still at the mercy of international oil markets, which in turn are driven by geopolitical developments. And U.S. natural gas prices also fluctuate with international markets as we export more of our gas when foreign supplies are tight. In short, our economy is still driven by OPEC and international unrest, just as it was by the OPEC oil embargo more than fifty years ago.

To his credit, and to my surprise, Bush had a clearer view of the situation than Trump. When he signed the 2007 energy bill, he said that our dependence on oil—not just foreign oil—“hurts us economically through high and volatile prices at the pump,” “creates pollution,” “contributes to greenhouse gas emissions,” and “threatens our national security by making us vulnerable to hostile regimes in unstable regions of the world.” (Actually, in true Bush style, he seems to have misspoken and said “admitting to greenhouse gases.” Perhaps that was a Freudian slip, since it was a rare admission that climate change was a serious problem.)

For this reason, Bush said, the 2007 bill was “a significant step toward reducing our dependence on oil, confronting global climate change, expanding renewable fuel production, and ensuring a stronger, cleaner, and safer nation for future generations of our country.” So Bush clearly understands the need to reduce our dependence on oil for reasons that include environmental benefits.

So let’s give it to the people who deserve it, George W. Bush was absolutely right on this one. (I never thought I’d be writing that sentence!) The only way to achieve energy independence is to achieve independence from fossil fuels.

This is not something we can achieve overnight, but the closer we get, the better—for our health, our national security, and the world. Today, we can celebrate progress toward a goal that may be far in the future.