Monday, September 29, 2014

GOP Divided Over Oil Export Ban

Via Politico:

"The petroleum industry’s crusade to lift the four-decade-old ban on crude oil exports is shaping up as next year’s hottest energy debate, and potential White House contenders like Gov. Chris Christie and Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are already on board.

Some GOP fans of crude exports are ready to move even without party unity. Asked if he had qualms about getting ahead of his leaders in pushing to end the ban, Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe said, “No. Because it’s right.”


Another outspoken export advocate is Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who’s in line to chair the Energy and Natural Resources Committee if Republicans retake the chamber.
Democrats face their own divide on the issue. The White House has left the door open to re-examining the ban, former top economic adviser Larry Summers called for its demise this month, and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz last year described barring exports as a 20th-century policy. In June, the Commerce Department caused a stir with the news that it had approved licenses for two oil producers to export limited amounts of a lightly processed ultralight crude known as condensate. The administration appears “ready to go where the Hill is on this,” Catanzaro added."

The fact that this issue in now being seriously debated points to the stupidity and corruption of our Congress. Exporting oil and gas makes absolutely no sense for US consumers. For years, all we heard was that we had to develop domestic oil resources to rid ourselves of foreign oil imports--and the second that trend starts to reverse, the Republicans want us selling our natural resources to foreigners. Whatever you may think about fracking and drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, at the very least you should want these fuels to by consumed by Americans, since we are the ones taking all the health/environmental risks from the extraction processes.

In all honesty I hope the Repubs continue to push forward on this issue, because it would perfectly demonstrate how they never really cared about reducing gas prices-- it was always about profits for their industry donors. It would be impossible for them to ever construe oil exports as a good thing for the American consumers for whom they pretend to care so much about. And this is from the same people that always said we cant afford environmental protections because it may cause energy prices to rise. Now they want to be able to sell our oil to higher bidding foreigners, which borders on treason in my book. Selling our domestic energy for foreign fiat...brilliant idea guys!

2 comments:

Ryan Harris said...

Economics always sees everything in black and white: resources good, exports bad. But regulatory barriers are rarely effective when many opportunities exist for arbitrage.

The industry already exports oil after various levels of processing and refining, all of which is completely legal. Some barely-refined grades of condensate were approved for export earlier this year and helped to reduce spreads with world prices for ultralight crude.

A favorable outcome to the debate in Washington would be helpful but it sort of doesn't make a huge difference. The ban in place probably only suppresses domestic resource development on highly marginal fields anyway.

The industry as a whole isn't united either in the crusade, It would probably have a negative impact on the gulf coast refining, chemical and plastics industry if the spread advantage of US crude diminished.

In all likelihood, The crude oil export ban is probably illegal under our neo-liberal trade agreements and rumor is that several European allies threatened by Russian energy supply cuts this year plan to challenge the ban.

The Just Gatekeeper said...

"The industry as a whole isn't united either in the crusade, It would probably have a negative impact on the gulf coast refining, chemical and plastics industry if the spread advantage of US crude diminished.

In all likelihood, The crude oil export ban is probably illegal under our neo-liberal trade agreements and rumor is that several European allies threatened by Russian energy supply cuts this year plan to challenge the ban."

Interesting, didnt think of that. If this debate does heat up next year it will certainly be a fascinating one to follow.