Energy is essential in America, and 40% of what we use comes from oil and 23% from natural gas. That comes to about 21 million barrels of oil and 64 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. Domestic oil production is declining–down nearly half since 1970–so imports are up, from one-third of what we needed in 1970 to just under 60% today. So we need to discover and access more of our own energy resources.