“The tectonic plates are shifting” is a much over-used expression. But when it comes to the international energy industry, the expression is apt.

Here in America, where policymakers have spent decades worrying about over-dependence on oil from unstable or hostile regimes, a new technology—fracking—is producing such an abundance of supplies of crude oil that refineries are having difficulty processing all of the crude being produced, and talk of exports can be heard from Wyoming to Houston. As for natural gas, this writer remembers when supplies were so short that burning gas for decorative illumination was forbidden in some states and frowned on in others. Now the same technology that is making America the next Saudi Arabia (to borrow the jargon of overwrought analysts) is also adding decades of supplies of natural gas to its available resource base, driving down the price and making it possible for us to become a major exporter of natural gas. Unless, of course, the government accedes to the wishes of DuPont and other large users of natural gas and refuses to allow exports, no matter their potential for reducing our trade deficit.