Energy Independence

The state in which a country is self-sufficient in it's energy supply and so has no need to import energy, or the political policy of trying to achieve this condition.

In the United States, energy independance is de facto equivilent to oil independance. Currently the US is heavily dependant on oil imports from the Middle East and Russia. Proponents of energy independance view this as weakening the country by making it dependant on international oil prices and vulnerable to threats from oil exporters, and so campaign for efforts to reach independance by either increasing domestic production, decreasing oil demand, or a combination of the two approaches.