So you lay out $3 billion, and you don’t know if you will be allowed to drill.
This assures that OPEC will never see much competition from American resources.
If you have to lay out $3 billion up front, and then they can string you out for twenty years before turning you down on your permit, you can see that only the really big boys with big pockets can survive this kind of thing, and even they have to consider if its worth it when there are other places they can drill where the host countries actually want the oil to flow.
A concentrated effort to achieve energy independence would require an overhaul of our regulations, it would require a determination to steam-roll the hurdles we have set up over the years to let our own energy companies develop our own resources. We can never achieve independence if some bureaucrat has the power to stymy it with impunity. Endlessly.
Actually, it would only require logic and reason...but both are in short supply in Washington, DC.