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A clear majority of American adults want our country to be fully energy independent, and the goal is easily in reach — if Democrats don’t prevent it.
Per polling done for the Council for a Secure America, 53% of US adults agree that “America’s energy independence makes our country safer.”
Almost 60% think “energy independence helps the economy grow by creating high-paying jobs,” while some 71% percent say “it’s better for America to produce its own energy.”
That’s not the result of this year’s price spikes thanks to the Iran war: A June 2025 poll from the CSA shows essentially the same results.
They’re entirely right, of course.
Energy independence boosts national security by removing any foreign nation’s power to leverage our supply; energy abundance (which goes hand in hand with independence) means lower prices, a stronger economy, higher living standards and a better, richer future for every American.
And the United States has been trending the right way on energy independence since we hit record levels of imports in about 2006: In 2024, our net energy exports (exports minus imports) hit more than 9 quadrillion BTUs (British Thermal Units) — and the next year hit an all-time high of 11 quadrillion, with all signs indicating continued growth.
Our record exports come despite near-record levels of domestic energy use, too — that is, US fuel production is out pacing consumption.
That’s driven largely by the fracking revolution boosting oil and natural-gas extraction, a rise dented only for a few years by Biden administration efforts to stifle it — moves like canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and almost ending new drilling access on federal lands while boosting the federal royalty on fuels extracted by 50%.
President Donald Trump’s reversed that hostility as part of an across-the-board push for abundant energy that includes boosting nuclear-power generation by streamlining approval for new reactors, reforming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and setting a goal of quadrupling of our nuke-power capacity by 2050.
Yet Democrats still demand policies that guarantee energy scarcity.
In blue states like New York and California, they aim to eliminate fossil-fuel carbon emissions; at the federal level, progressives in Congress constantly push laws to hamper generation, exploration and even transmission.
The push for “abundance liberalism” — that is, understanding that having cheap electricity and consumer goods and housing is good — seems to have failed; Democrats this year aren’t shouting out their opposition to cheaper energy, but few are running on anything about it except blaming Trump for higher pump prices.
(You’re supposed to forget Biden-era gas prices.)
To see what happens when scarcity fans win the energy policy fight, take a look at Germany, where anti-fossil-fuel and anti-nuclear pieties have produced soaring power costs that basically stopped economic growth.
Democratic victories in November could yield a Congress committed to the same greensanity, likely hobbling Trump’s drive for prosperity — thereby putting energy abundance, and America’s future fortunes, at risk.