The US is still oil independent - the keystone pipeline didn't change a thing in that regard (how could it? If you can ship oil from Russia, you can ship it from slightly further north in your own continent.

Oil is a fungible commodity though: the price is effected by global demand - as I noted in a previous thread on this exact subject, the idea of "independence" and "dependence" both mean nothing so long as private enterprise can own the resource and faces no restrictions on its export.

Okay, makes sense. But how does that negate us giving Russia a war chest of money the past year?

If you mean Russian oil exports, I thought the bulk of those went to Europe and China. It looks like 8 or 9% of US oil imports have been coming from Russia. About half our imports are from Canada. I’m not sure what percentage of US oil usage would be Russian import, but it doesn’t seem like “war chest” level?

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0...

Edit: on further inspection, it does seem like a large dollar amount. And if you look at 2019 numbers, we imported a much larger fraction from Russia than in 2021. I still think much more Russian oil goes to Europe

They’ve been seizing all of that money. It’s mostly unavailable at this point.

> One thing I do think Biden did wrong was shut down the keystone pipeline

Biden did not shut down the Keystone pipeline - he revoked the permit for Keystone pipeline phase 4 (KeystoneXL) on January 20, 2021

The rest of the Keystone pipeline is operational and delivering Canadian oil to midwest refineries

I don’t think KeystoneXL would have been completed in time to have any effect on the Ukrainian invasion