Fair enough. You raise some valid points. But then one has to ask, would the price of the end product (e.g. gasoline, diesel, etc.) be cheaper if we were refining our own, higher quality crude oil? Our refineries might not make as much profit, but the price of the end product would presumably be lower.
I imagine the price would be a little lower on the margins but the market for those refined products is global. The price couldn't drop too much before it became more profitable to export the products.
In our system the refiner's goal is to make money, not minimize the cost to US consumers.
Semi forgot to address your proposition that the govt should get out of the way. Forgot to talk about how hard it is to build new refineries here. Just went on about how the ones we have are tuned to imported oil types. Isn’t that strange?
Of course it would be advantageous to produce and refine our own energy.
Cheap energy is the lifeblood of freedom. And the bad guys don’t want that (cheap energy or freedom).