Mark Drajem of Bloomberg reports that “U.S. crude oil production in the fourth quarter will exceed imports for the first time since 1995, as booming fields in North Dakota and Texas put the nation on track to surpass a quarter-century output record.”

Not so long ago, we worried over our dependence on imported oil and talked of how we were “addicted to oil.”  This was, of course, a bad thing.  In the universe of elite opinion, our new oil abundance will also be a bad thing.  But for different reasons. In an effortless, metaphorical shift, we will go from addicts to pushers, and become suppliers without conscience to a world full of petroleum junkies.