From
MarketWatch:
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. government is doing a disservice to the American public by suggesting the country can become energy-independent, especially since the country has oil and gas resources that are off-limits to development, Exxon Mobil Corp.'s top executive said Tuesday.
...
There are potential sources of supply in the U.S. where federal law prohibits drilling, including parts of the Rocky Mountains, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, offshore California and the hotly-debated Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Tillerson called it "irresponsible" for the government to withhold U.S. resources from its own people.
In other news, buggy whip manufacturers decried the development of automobiles, saying it's a "disservice" and "irresponsible" to discourage reliance on the traditional horse and carriage.
Another passage in the MarketWatch article, which outlines all those untapped "potential sources of supply" cited above, states:
That doesn't include the resources that currently can't be recovered because the right technology hasn't been created. The technology is only a matter of time, Tillerson said.
Soooo ... let me get this straight. The oil supply will be magically expanded by future technology that doesn't exist yet, but we can't begin to move toward research and development of other technologies for other energy supplies? Technology development exists exclusively in a very finite realm that only applies to oil extraction, which just happens to be Exxon Mobil's main line of business? Got it.
Of course, it's possible Tillerson's mind is simply befuddled with the giddiness of Exxon Mobil posting the largest profit of any corporation in U.S. history, or the windfall the feds handed his company by extending $7 billion of royalty waivers to energy companies that pump resources from public land.