The Debunker: The Big 'Energy Independence' Lie

"Energy independence is, apparently, no longer good enough for the U.S. Introducing President Donald Trump before the signing of an executive order aimed at rolling back some of President Barack Obama's environmental measures, Energy Secretary Rick Perry declared:

I don't want America just to be energy independent. I want America to be energy dominant. It isn't entirely clear what being "energy dominant" means. Some countries have held powerful positions in global energy markets at various times, including the U.S. Even so, America's competitive advantage is only partly about access to energy supplies; how it has used them to build a diversified economy matters far more. Just take a look at the economy of another energy behemoth, Russia.

Energy independence has a more established place in U.S. political discourse. Indeed, on the campaign trail last year, Harold Hamm, CEO of oil producer Continental Resources Inc., declared President Trump would become the first president to achieve American energy independence.”*

Hosts: Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola
Cast: Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola

***

Young Turk (n), 1. Young progressive or insurgent member of an institution, movement, or political party. 2. Young person who rebels against authority or societal expectations. (American Heritage Dictionary)

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[STOICDevelopmentcenterofEARTH]

America needs tough critics like TYT... if we didnt have outlets like TYT America would continue to live the "we are #1" lie...when in fact we need to take a long hard look at ourselves.

[aresmars]

"Energy independence" ought to mean sustainable energy - solar (passive and active), wind, hydro, geothermal.

[likquidsteel]

Couldn't energy independence also mean that America supplies 100% of its own oil needs plus exports excess production abroad? Aren't there other countries who are net exporters of oil?

[ForAnAngel]

I thought it meant we wouldn't rely on oil imports?

[calcrappie]

Our pumping ability is indeed price and market dependent. So is the rest of the output around the world. The power of US shale is that we are likely to become the largest producer in the world. Our resources added to the world petroleum market puts a lid on OPEC games and they find it very frustrating that WE have that ability to disrupt a cartel of largely dysfunctional oil states.

[padriagpearse]

More videos like this know intelligent and to the point.

[robinvik]

Socializing the oil production is not crazy. That's exactly what Norway have done. Now they have huge rainy day found they could fall back on should the country face economic trouble.

[James--Parker]

Sure, but it's cheaper to sell locally. Why export, when you can sell it locally and save yourself the transportation costs. Oil prices are fairly uniform across countries, so given the choice oil and natural gas companies will always sell locally if their is a market.

[WillGM]

Cenk forgot to mention that we should also tell Randy Gonzalez. Lol

[BladeWinters]

How is this segment not an everyday thing?

[littleBrownDwarf]

the only real energy independence is in renewables like wind and solar.

[zandemen]

Maybe I assumed energy independence meant something else, not that they keep all the oil or the profits from it, but they produce enough domestically that they can supply their own military if there were ever an embargo, sanctions, blockade or trade wars, or basically anything that stopped the flow of energy into the country could not cripple the country.
This would stop anyone from holding USA hostage to energy supplies or having a large advantage in negotiating pricing and supplies.
Not that they have to produce all their own supply, but they can have the ability to do so.
Was I wrong on this point?

[mikkeld]

Energy independence means we (the country) reduce the leverage another country can have over us by threatening to reduce drilling/output of a resource that we (the country) desperately need. If USA produced no energy themselves they could be brought to their knees very quickly by the countries who supply us if they so wanted. If we produce a lot of that energy ourselves than that sort of economic/resource war can not be won so easily.

[Nick-jbxi]

Energy independence matters for when the US is put under sanctions for our War Crimes.

[smaakjeks]

The Norwegian government owns almost 70% of the shares of the (only?) company that is allowed to extract oil from Norwegian territory; Statoil. Norway was one of the poorest countries in Europe (ca. 1905). Then oil was discovered (1969) and Statoil established (1972). Now it's the richest country per capita in the entire world, due largely to an oil fund of 1 trillion USD. Those are things that happened.

[bigdaz]

Like most political statements has an implied meaning and an actual meaning.
"Protecting our freedoms" for example, not protecting the freedom and liberty of the people but there freedom to operate with minimul restrictions and the corperations that own them.

[VulcanLogic]

We could technically be energy independent with wind and solar, because it's rather difficult to export electricity to places outside of North America.

[andydavis]

I agree with moving towards renewable energy but guess what he forgot to mention one thing if their is more oil being produced in the world the cheaper it becomes. also won't it be better to get oil here then from the middle east?

[marcuskarl]

yeah, if you have oil on your land it's yours, but if you collect water on your land the government tells you it's illegal. Funny how that works.

[TheTwick]

Maybe it goes back to the early 1973s when we had "the Arab Oil Embargo ". I remember the pictures on the news of oil tankers from the Middle East sitting off the coast. Gasoline & heating oil supplies were getting very low. Gas stations were either closed or had flags out front - red flag meant no gas; yellow flag meant limited gas per car; and a green flag meant unlimited gas (those changed from day to day). The open stations had very long lines of cars - tempers flared (there were even shootings over a place in line). I had to allow myself an extra few hours to get gas and get to work on time. They told us we were totally dependent on that flow of crude oil from OPEC. Prices soared (over a dollar a gallon!). They told us we needed "energy independence " from the rest of the world. Does anyone remember any more of this? Was it a hoax?