Second terms for Presidents tend to bring disappointments, but one  success may be waiting for whoever happens to occupy the White House over the next four years:achievement of the long promised goal of energy independence.

The massive increase in natural gas production in the United States, coupled with the full development of the massive oil sand resource in Canada, could make North America the world’s fastest-growing energy producing region in the years ahead and put us on the way to energy self-sufficiency by 2020. It won’t have fully happened by 2017, but the achievement will be on the near horizon.

Either President Obama or Governor Romney as president will likely preside over the greatest United States surge in domestic fossil fuel production since the 1930s. The domestic environmental lobby that loves high prices and scarcity can not be happy with this coming success for North American consumers.