I remember when the open hostilities between Ukraine and Russia began, everyone tried to say "oil is dead." These political figures are doing everything they can to destroy anything related to oil and natural gas. Oil and natural gas funds the Republican party, so the Democrats want to destroy their opposition's source of funding. Once they are able to destroy the oil and gas industry in it's current form, they will simply turn around and say: "oops we were wrong for the right reasons, we'll rebuild it," and bam, no more privately operated oil and gas operations. I think public officials are just angry that the entire econony runs on a commodity that they don't get to control. They want the control so bad. And they'll tell you it's because they have great ideas to make the world a better place, if only those evil privateers would step aside and let them hold the reigns.