AUSTIN – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Power voted to end the forty-year ban on exporting oil to foreign countries. The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Armstrong Center for Energy and the Environment Director Kathleen Hartnett White and Center for Fiscal Policy Economist Dr. Vance Ginn issued the following statements:
“The ban on export of domestically produced crude oil enacted in 1973 was a response to oil scarcity and high prices- conditions radically defeated by the shale revolution,” said White. “Unimaginable a few years ago, the U.S. became the world’s largest producer of crude oil and related liquid fuels in 2013. The plunge in oil prices has not decreased the colossal and still rising output of oil and natural gas produced in America’s shale fields. More than three-fourths of increased global oil production is now made in the USA. Repeal of the export ban could allow our nation to become the world’s energy superpower.”
“Today’s vote to end the oil exports ban is a major victory down the road to breaking the chains of an antiquated prohibition that keeps Americans from reaching their full potential,” said Ginn. “If basic economics and the results from multiple government reports are worthy guides, lower gasoline prices and increased domestic oil production from highly efficient rigs that employ hydraulic fracturing will fuel increased economic prosperity. The freedom for oil producers to meet the needs of the global market, as works extraordinarily well in so many other markets, is vital as the oil and natural gas sector has been one of the few bright spots in a historically dismal economic recovery. More domestic oil reaching the global market will help increase energy price stability and make the world a safer place as it reduces the already shrinking dependence of oil from unfriendly countries in the Middle East.”
Kathleen Hartnett White is a Distinguished Senior Fellow and Director for the Armstrong Center for Energy and the Environment.
Vance Ginn, Ph.D. is an Economist in the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin, Texas.