There's a small problem with that article. If you actually read the report, it estimates the oil available in the bakken at 4.6 billion barrels. Nothing about it being light and sweet (most of the oil out of the US is not, which is why we export most domestically produced oil, as without the emission regulations we have to deal with here, you wind up with more salable product per barrel if it is for export).
As for gramps comment, the hippies win because big oil is on their side for the moment. Big oil wants exactly what we have right now. High prices fueled by speculation rather than short supply on the market. They also want to spend their money where the oil extraction is cheapest, and that's not within the US borders yet. Getting permission ot drill and refine in the US is a mega-hassle. But that's not the real stumbling block. Big oil has managed ot get a few of them out of the government, and then proceeded ot not do anything with them because it was not the most cost effective move to them.
They aren't hurting in this economy, and thus aren't interested in doing more for less.
And of course there is a lot of fracking going on inside the US because it isn't regulated.
In the end, the energy companies do what they perceive to be in their own best interest.
All the political talk about climate change zealots controlling the energy business is just so much BS.
Gramps
Gee, according to this story, all of our Big Energy companies, and all their money, and all the politicians they have bought and paid for, and all the illegal and subversive tactics they sometimes employ, and all the fake science they publicize, are all helpless against a small band of hippie environmentalists.
I wonder what color the sky is in THAT world.