Of course they are cheapening the price. If you are losing market share to a competitor who provides an identical product, you lower prices. The point being that investing in oil and gas production can't and never will lead to energy independence, which is obvious to anyone who understands basic economics.
You want to become the leading oil producer, great... Why? Because you want to destroy your own land for short term gain, while pretending that the massive externalities don't exist?
For maybe the tenth time,
it isn't about totally replacing oil and gas instantaneously. It is about making reasonable policy changes that will transition us away from oil and gas without harming the economy.
Germany, the most powerful economy in Europe, gets 20-30% of it's power from renewables, using a mix of wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, etc. By 2040, it will be 50-65%. They have doubled the amount of jobs in that sector since 2004 and the renewable companies are making a profit... All by "doing the impossible," which is defined as "what Western conservatives incorrectly hold to be impossible."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_R ... Energy_Act