I think a "Manhattan Project" is in order to come up with some new and better solutions.
That is precisely what we need to lead this country to energy independence. Achieving energy independence in this country is merely a scientific and engineering problem to be solved. Both the Manhattan project and the Apollo program were huge in scope and cost...but in the end, success prevailed.
What made those programs succeed? Vision. This country had leadership at the time that articulated a vision of where we needed to be and led this country to that point. Sadly, in the last many years, this country has had a dearth of visionary leadership from both sides of the aisle. Until that changes we will lose the will to press on to energy independence once the prices drop just a bit and we will be right back where we are...