True, there is no oil and we just relied on cheap gas from Russia--which I guess it didn't turn out to be a good strategy after all.

That's interesting about oil companies. Is that who's lobbing to pass laws that just seem (to me) to be written on purpose to make our companies less competitive? How does that work, how do oil companies profit from that?

If you can sell more oil and at a higher price, you get more money.