This adds up to a very different outlook from a few years ago. Until fairly recently, energy independence was a subject to get laughs. The joke was that America was actually becoming more and more dependent upon imports. But now “energy independence” has become a subject of serious discussion and debate.

The prospects for actual energy independence remain elusive. It takes some very heroic assumptions to see that happening. But with oil demand in the United States declining, output rising and increasing integration with Canada, the United States is certainly on the way to becoming “energy less dependent.”

At the same time, Brazil is developing its huge offshore reserves and could become one of the world’s powerhouses in terms of oil production, far overshadowing its impressive output of ethanol.

The results of this hemispheric upsurge will have far-reaching consequences — nothing less than a rebalancing of world oil. Much less oil will come from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere, and much more Middle Eastern oil will flow to Asia. As it is, China already imports more oil from the Persian Gulf than the United States does.

The impact is becoming evident in the way America talks about energy. President Obama’s address to Congress in February 2009 was all about “clean, renewable energy” and called for doubling “this nation’s supply of renewable energy in the next three years.” His 2010 State of the Union address was about “clean energy jobs.” He had barely a word for oil and natural gas in those speeches.

IN his 2012 address, the president caught up with the new reality and spoke with quite a different emphasis. “This country,” he declared, “needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of energy.” He pointed to the near-doubling of renewable energy use since 2008 and rightly emphasized their importance to the nation’s future energy mix. But this year he devoted almost as much time to natural gas and oil as to renewables. His announcement that “American oil production is the highest it has been in eight years” turned out to be an applause line.

This new discourse is shaped not only by the surge in oil and gas production. But it also represents a growing recognition of what this means for the overall economy. Traditionally, the major arguments in favor of domestic oil and gas production have mainly been about energy security and balance of payments. But now this surge is recognized as an engine of economic growth. Increasing domestic supply means that fewer dollars are going overseas and more of them are staying at home, going into investment and job creation.