On July 14, 2015, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Richard Burr (R-NC), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, in support of the intelligence community' assessment of the geopolitical and international security impacts surrounding current domestic energy renaissance.
In addition, the letter states that North America’s energy independence is an attainable goal as well as an economic reality; and cites the National Intelligence Council’s December 2012 Global Trends 2030 report which states, “by the year 2020, the U.S. could emerge as a major energy exporter."