Former economic adviser Lawrence Summmers is pushing the US government to lift its ban of exporting crude oil. Summers claims there is research showing lifting the ban would actually lower gasoline prices in the US.
CEO of energy giant Royal Dutch Shell argues US oil and natural gas exports "would reinforce the long term future of North American energy production, [...] help to make the global energy system much more stable," and of course significantly improve the US balance of trade.
The U.S. currently bans exporting crude oil, but allows the export of refined oil products. Refineries want to keep the ban because it ensures access to cheap and easy to refine crude oil. Environmentalists oppose the ban because they want to cut back on fossil fuel usage in general. Opponents also argue that lifting the ban could make oil products expensive or hard to get in the long term.
According to NPR, the POTUS could lift the ban with an executive order.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:50AM
If America is self-sufficient enough to export crude, then why the hell is it still dicking around in the Middle-East, and why the hell are domestic gas prices still high*?
* Yes, I know there are plenty of first-world countries in which citizens pay more for petrol than America does
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:04AM
Muslim extremists who launch terrorist attacks against the US, is one reason.
Yes, clearly we had no business in Iraq the second time around - that's clear to just about everyone except Dick Cheney. But now we have to live with the situation of unstable governments in Iraq and Syria, and ISIL making military inroads in both countries.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:08AM
That's a bunch of fearmongering bullshit. You know it and I know it. Dick Cheney even knows it. A few problematic domestic goat-fuckers are no reason to have a military presence in the Middle-East. If the Arab states formed a coalition they could crush ISIS like a roach, especially with Israel's support. We have no business dicking around over there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:09AM
> If the Arab states formed a coalition they could crush ISIS like a roach, especially with Israel's support.
Call me when that happens, if I'm still alive.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:10AM
My point being that if ISIS is as big of a threat as everybody is making them out to be, then in America's absence Israel will team up with at least some gulf states to defeat ISIS.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:18AM
Arabs and Israel uniting to exterminate Islamic terrorists. Yeah. That will work.
Ethanol, what the hell are you snorting this evening?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:34PM
Depends on whick Arab states join the other side.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by doublerot13 on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:51AM
The Middle East is about creating and sustaining the terrorism bogeyman. We need a reason to keep making and using weapons[and replacing]. The fact that innocent people are dying because of it is inconsequential.
You've been living in the United States of Northrup Gruman / Boeing / Raytheon / General Dynamics / BAE Systems / Lockheed Martin / DynCorp / Booz Allen Hamilton / Boston Dynamics ... for over 60+ years now, you just haven't accepted it yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:03AM
The first duty of a government - ANY government - is to protect its citizens. For a national government, this means protecting against foreign and domestic threats, and natural disasters; including our citizens who venture abroad and are minding their own business, like the ones that ISIL executed on propaganda video.
If the government fails to do that, it does not survive, its own citizens will see to that. That's one of the surest lessons of history, it goes back 1000s of years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:26AM
You don't send thousands of troops, fly hundreds of bomb drops, etc. after every US citizen's murder overseas.
Americans get killed by gangsters in Mexico, South America, and various parts of the world all the time. Cartels are actually crossing the border and killing Americans here in the US.
We don't bomb Mexico or Columbia because despite the fact that gangs are actually murdering and dismembering people all the time they can't be made into evil terrorists that we have to use disproportionate response on like brown people in the Middle East.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:36AM
Yes, Americans are murdered all by criminals all over the world, but ISIL is executing Americans for propaganda purposes and have signalled their intention to continue. That cannot be allowed to stand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:58PM
Silly person. Gangs in America kill each other all the time for propaganda purposes.
We haven't seen the government overreact at them and start indiscriminately bomb Americans have we?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:41PM
and why the hell are domestic gas prices still high
Americans do not own the oil underneath the ground in American, multinationals do. So there is no reason at all to think oil would be cheaper in the US even if we had so much that imports weren't needed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Solaarius on Sunday September 21 2014, @06:57PM
The Earth is a closed system and oil is a finite resource. We will use it all up. The idea is to use up all the oil in the Middle East first.
Let's try an analogy (no cars, though!). Let's say you and I both have a barrel of water, and that's all the water there ever will be.
Your barrel is full of nice liquid water, which is easy to get out of the barrel and easy to drink (like the light crude in the Middle East is easy to extract and refine into usable fuel). But my barrel of water is frozen ice, hard to get out of the barrel and I have to melt it to drink it (kind of like how the very deep Gulf oil or the shale oil/tar sands in North America is more expensive to extract and requires more refining to turn it into usable fuel).
Somehow I convince you that it's a really good idea for me to just buy water from you, because my water is too hard/expensive to get. Sure I could have "water independence" any time I want, but then we both have control over our own water until we both run out (oh and I would be paying more for my water than you are, by the way).
Wouldn't it be smarter for me to just have us both use all your water until you run out, then I have lots of my own water left? Sure it costs more to use my water, but once yours is all gone, I have full control over ALL of the water. And I can charge you way more now for my water than you were charging me all those years.
(Score: 2) by doublerot13 on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:43AM
Until we can produce enough oil to satisfy the needs of the entire country doesn't it make sense to keep the export ban?
Why on earth would we export something that is clearly in need?
Seems about as smart as drinking saltwater while dying of thirst.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:55AM
Different qualities, perhaps? Different oils are used for different things. We may not be self-sufficient on fuel oil but maybe there's other oils that we make more than we can use.
Either that, or some execs want to save a few bucks by building refineries in a place with dirt-cheap labor.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by doublerot13 on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:11AM
I'm no expert, but my dad worked for Exxon at a major refinery in the US. According to him refineries like lighter grades because they require less refining to make end products. However, heavy grades still work too. They just require more time in the equipment, which means less profit.
A quick glance at the google suggests that more recent production has been of the light variety. We are actually increasing imports of heavier stuff to maintain balance in overall supplies of each grade.
If there is a push to export oil, it is almost certainly a means to the end of making oil companies richer, not help the GP.
Also, Larry Summers has a long history of giving advice which is clearly in the interest of businesses not people. See the financial crisis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:04AM
> Until we can produce enough oil to satisfy the needs of the entire country doesn't it make sense to keep the export ban?
By that logic we should have a ban on exporting most types of refined oil too.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:32AM
By that logic we should have a ban on exporting most types of refined oil too.
You misunderstand.
We don't export our own refined oil.
We import oil from places like Columbia and Venezuela, and pay for it by refining services, which we sell back, sometimes to the very country we imported from. We have excess refinement capability precisely for this reason.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:12AM
Why on earth would we export something that is clearly in need?
Because the CEO of energy giant Royal Dutch Shell says we should. What more convincing evidence do you need than the word of an international Oil company?
Seriously that was a dead giveaway the whole story was a giant troll post.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by andersjm on Sunday September 21 2014, @06:45AM
The export ban doesn't keep the oil in your country. It keeps redundant extra refining capacity on U.S. soil.
Which is good, because when WWIII breaks out, and oil can no longer be transported across the seas because of the omnipresent Swiss attack subs, then you will still be able to fuel the bombers that will flatten Switzerland down to sea level.
Until that happens, the redundant capacity is just extra cost.
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Monday September 22 2014, @12:31AM
I've heard that we export our NZ crude because it's high quality and fetches a better world market price and is blended with other lesser quality crudes to bring up their overall quality and refinability.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Theophrastus on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:45AM
I've got some research right here [does a fan dance with pie charts] which says if you all send me $13.97 your lives will be improved.
(one should always inquire: who paid for your ..research?)
(Score: 2) by mendax on Sunday September 21 2014, @03:11AM
The latter two portions of this statement are true, but the first is pure bollocks. The United States as an energy market is large enough to "reinforce the long term future of North American energy production". And I wonder how much Larry Summers was paid to say that it might reduce gasoline prices in the U.S. I know a better way to do that: ban the export of refined oil products like diesel and gasoline.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nadaou on Sunday September 21 2014, @03:52AM
>> and of course significantly improve the US balance of trade.
> The latter two portions of this statement are true,
But what he doesn't mention is that it would improve the US balance of trade by exporting all the US refinery jobs overseas to areas where it can be done cheaper without any useful labor or environmental laws to worry about.
How did exporting all their raw materials overseas with no value-add at home work out for Victorian Africa?
~ Forward in all directions ~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:06PM
So, USA, the bastion of Free Market or not?
1. quotas on sugar imports along with crazy corn subsidies distort sugar market where it is cheaper to have high-fructose corn syrup over cane sugar
2. crude oil export ban
3. largest agricultural subsidies in the world (Europe, very close 2nd)
How does this jive with Free Market where you have arbitrary bans and subsidies?
I crude oil export ban is from the days of price controls on gasoline - another Free Market wonder - but why keep it? It serves no purpose at all.