What America Is Getting Right on Energy

National Review Online

Tuesday, April 28, 2026

 

Today’s trip to the gas station will be an unwelcome reminder of the imbroglio in the Persian Gulf. The average price nationwide in January was $2.81/gallon, a five-year low. It is now $4.11. Grim as that is, it is significantly less of a hike than that endured by Americans during the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks. And autos typically consume less fuel than half a century ago. With (possibly) limited exceptions on the West Coast, drivers are highly unlikely to see a return to the gas lines of the 1970s.

 

The principal reasons for thinking so are a wider range of energy resources, improved efficiency, and, to oversimplify, a rebirth of energy self-sufficiency. In recent years, the U.S. has become a net oil exporter, for the first time since around 1950. By 1973, the U.S. was importing around a third of its oil, a figure that ultimately rose far higher. Much of that came through the Strait of Hormuz.

 

This changed with the revival of American oil and gas production on the back of hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling. Not for the first time, American innovation and American entrepreneurialism had come to the country’s rescue. The U.S. is currently the world’s largest producer of natural gas. American exports of LNG play a critical part in enabling Europe to muddle the energy crunch brought about by the combination of its net-zero follies and the ending of (almost) all its supply of “cheap” Russian gas.

 

For their part, higher U.S. natural gas prices have mainly been driven by strong domestic demand, but they remain at a smallish fraction of European levels. It’s telling that, as of a week or so ago, the U.S. Henry Hub benchmark had fallen some 9 percent since the beginning of the Iran conflict, while the European (TTF) and Asian benchmarks (JKM) had soared.

 

The U.S.’s near self-sufficiency in fossil fuels has been a triple boon. It has increased the country’s growth, its wealth, and, in dangerous times such as now, its security. Energy abundance will do that.

 

Yes, the domestic oil price has increased, but that reflects the fact that oil is traded globally. Supply constraints elsewhere are reflected in higher prices here. However, unlike in many parts of the world, there is, with the limited exception referred to above, little or no talk of shortages. A key exception to this is diesel, used in trucking, construction equipment, and so on, where insufficient refining capacity has contributed to supply constraints, as it has with jet fuel.

 

The shortfalls in the country’s refining capacity can be explained by the failure to build any major refineries since the 1970s. Environmental activism has turned the approval process into a near-Sisyphean project likely to be rewarded, even if successful, by lawfare and the danger that the “energy transition” will destroy much of the demand for its products. Given that a new refinery costs billions and that payback would take years, building one is an enormous gamble. Refining’s John Galts have walked away. This is a problem that needs tackling.

 

The refinery saga is a reminder of the extent to which energy abundance and energy poverty are so often a matter of choice, sometimes active, sometimes passive. The U.S. enjoys its strong energy position because of the way that abundant resources, the rights to them (unlike in much of the world, property owners own the minerals under their land), and private enterprise allowed the shale revolution to take root.

 

But relying on the assumption that the country can coast along on the frackers’ efforts will not be enough, and nor — welcome though it is — will drill, baby, drill, although more federal lands should be opened up to this effort, as should more coastal areas, with reasonable environmental protection. Permitting on private lands should be relaxed.

 

The lesson of the past few decades is that energy is one of those few areas where diversity really is strength. To take a few examples, more pipelines need to be built whether for oil or gas. Nuclear power needs encouragement and sensible permitting regimes. There should not be some taboo about renewables so long as they can stand on their own without needing subsidies, relying on Chinese equipment, or endangering the economics or the stability of the grid.

 

Those worried that these prescriptions do not take enough account of climate-policy considerations should remember that the affluence generated by energy abundance is not only good for America but the most likely route to the development of green technologies that can work on the scale that an economy based on the Jetsons rather than the Flintstones will need. Meanwhile, voters should remember that the fear that climatists will return to the helm (or, in the case of states such as California, remain there) is perhaps the biggest obstacle in the way of the further energy investment this country still needs.