OPEC

Congressional bills would end US mining and leave USA dependent on foreign critical materials.

In 1890, to force the dissolution of cartels that had been formed in key American industries like oil, sugar and tobacco, the U.S. Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act.

For the first time since at least the 1940s, the United States is exporting more oil and petroleum than it imports, spurring economic growth.

This year, oil production in America is expected to reach an all-time high, close to 9.5 million barrels a day. Similarly, natural gas output is projected to reach a record 75 billion cubic feet per day by the end of 2017.

Lower gasoline prices saved Americans more than $115 billion in 2016 compared to 2014, the American Automobile Association (AAA) reports.

The EPA just threw out five years of fracking safety research to appease green extremists.

Plummeting oil prices, which are largely the result of the U.S. hydraulic fracturing revolution that has nearly doubled oil production in the United States since 2008, have left many oil-exporting nations around the world reeling. The price drops have been particularly hard on nations in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Myriad OPEC governments are now stuck relying on dwindling oil revenues to fund large portions of their important social welfare programs, many of which are essential to maintaining national stability.

Thus far, the Saudi royal family has maintained its highly oppressive form of government by pacifying its people with an extensive welfare state funded by oil money. But low oil prices brought about by hydraulic fracturing in the United States are forcing the monarchy to give the Saudi people more freedom in order to remain in power.