If we'd remained energy independent, oil would not have seen the rise in price as we were EXPORTING oil, not at the mercy of OPEC, Russia, et al, to set the price of oil we consume. Yes, Russia's invasion has bumped up the price of oil but, if still energy independent, it wouldn't affect us one bit. Most/all of oil's rise can be laid at Biden's feet due to closing pipelines the first day in office.
I'm going to respond to this, certainly not to pick on you personally but just to provide my view given that i work in the oil industry as an engineer.
Prior to the pandemic, we achieved a degree of energy independence that we had not had since perhaps the 1960s. Through a combination of the ingenuity of domestic oil producers, along with incredible amounts of capital from Wall Street and other venture capital funds (and NO THANKS to the Obama administration), America became a net exporter of energy. The vast majority of domestic growth in oil and gas production came through shale drilling.
This enabled us to de-couple foreign policy considerations from energy policy. Without the shale revolution, there's no way we could have kept Iran's oil off the market in response to their nuclear ambitions. (This was absolutely the correct call by President Trump.)
The pandemic decimated energy demand throughout the world, leading to dramatic oversupply and falling prices. In response to falling demand (increased inventory), oil and gas producers began drastically cutting production. I can tell you that were massive layoffs in the oil and gas industry because of this.
As the Covid lockdowns ended, oil and gas demand finally began to rebound. Unfortunately, the industry was not fully prepared to rapidly ramp up production from a weakened position.
I will say that I disagree with the Biden's administration to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and to deny NEW oil and gas leases on federal lands. However, there is a lag effect in these actions.... they didn't immediately affect our ability to increase production, but they are just now starting to.
The whole energy supply / demand dynamic is fairly complex. There's virtually nothing positive I can say about the Biden administration, but I will say that Biden is not completely at fault for our current situation.
