Obama had all the mandate he could have dreamt of with the 28 pages in the 9/11 report[1]. He also had the opportunity, with fracking and Keystone XL offering t

Obama had all the mandate he could have dreamt of with the 28 pages in the 9/11 report[1]. He also had the opportunity, with fracking and Keystone XL offering the potential for the US/Canada to becomes entirely energy-self-reliant. He didn't take it, preferring instead to accommodate domestic environmental concerns. Such is politics, it is about prioritising between sub-ideal options -- but there's no reason to expect the next president will have significantly different priorities, regardless of what havoc Trump will end up wreaking. De-carbonising the US economy to achieve energy-self-reliance through locally produced renewables through policy (as opposed to eg solar being market-competitive and taking over at scale through market processes) will take decades and be way out of reach for any one president to see through -- it will require a much deeper (in practise, bipartisan congressional) commitment. Also, anyway, these are not exclusive options. It's not materially different to decarbonise from domestically produced oil than from Saudi produced oil -- indeed, it might be easier, as domestic oil is fairly expensive and Saudi is pretty cheap. 1: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/15/politics/congress-releases-28-pages-saudis-9-11/ http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/15/politics/congress-releases...