The House energy committee will take its first step Thursday toward passing legislation to lift a 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports.
Advertisement
A House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee approved the bill by a voice vote, sending the measure to the full committee for markup as soon as next week.
Regardless of falling US output, the worldwide oil glut, which has battered crude costs and oil exporting nations alike since final yr, exhibits few indicators of dissipating.
To view the full article, register now.
Oil prices rose on Thursday ahead of weekly US stocks data, despite fresh signs of an economic slowdown in China and Japan.
Screengrab from the American Petroleum Institute political advertisement, “Crude Oil Exports and National Security”.
They argue that the US now produces a bigger percentage of its own oil, from shale and fracking, and should be allowed to compete on the global market, while lowering fuel costs and creating jobs at home.
Rep. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, said that while he wouldn’t support a repeal “at this very moment”, he is talking to Republicans about a compromise. Studies have also indicated that prices may go down for American energy consumers. “We have an abundance of crude oil”, he said.
Along with the usual concerns about rising gasoline prices and dropping oil refinery business, some representatives did not feel that the oil industry should be immune to federal restrictions. And late Wednesday, the Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats endorsed the legislation, after the group took in presentations from bill cosponsor Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm. Their goal was to keep as much oil as possible within the US and insulate the country from a volatile worldwide energy market made even more chaotic and costly by the 1967 and 1973 Arab oil embargoes, which were intended to discourage and then punish the USA and other foreign nations for supporting Israel in the Six-Day and Yom Kippur wars.
And so, while it’s clear there is not yet a consensus on the best way to remove the oil export ban, its dissolution appears to be on the horizon.
“Me interviewing me”, Trump said Friday night.
Advertisement
The vote in committee was along strict party lines, with Democrats opposing the measure without further study to determine the impact on consumers.
