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October 03, 2015
Washington Examiner: What's happening to America's 40-year-old crude oil export ban?
Despite my unsavory limousine liberal past, I've become an ardent fan of the Washington Examiner, a decade-old right-leaning weekly/online publication with smarts, calm and class. I'm especially fond of its energy and environment coverage by John Siciliano. See "The push to end the 40-year-old ban on oil exports heats up". Excerpts:
The energy industry is making a hard shift from lobbying against ozone regulations to lifting the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports, in anticipation of a vote next week in the House to repeal the ban.
The industry was engaged for weeks in an eleventh-hour push against costly Environmental Protection Agency rules to reduce smog-forming ozone emissions that it says would harm energy and infrastructure development across the country. Now, energy groups have replaced that campaign with a push to get Congress to repeal the oil-export ban.
Around the country, the group Producers for American Crude Oil Exports will be shelling out advertising bucks for a television blitz to be shown during this weekend's college football games. The ad says President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran undermines U.S. oil and gas producers by lifting sanctions on the Persian Gulf country and allowing it to begin selling Iranian oil in the global market.
At the same time, groups are fighting against repealing the ban. Ralph Nader's Public Citizen consumer advocacy group is actively protesting lifting the ban, while refiners represented by the CRUDE Coalition continue to press lawmakers against repealing it. The coalition says lifting the ban would raise gasoline prices, while making the country more dependent on imports, including those from Iran.
The House bill was expected to come up for a vote last week, but the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio forced the GOP leadership to push it back. Aides say they are hopeful the bill will be brought to the floor ahead of the Columbus Day holiday [of] Oct. 12.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)