The House energy committee will take its first step Thursday toward passing legislation to lift a 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s energy and power subcommittee is set to vote on a bill introduced by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, with the support of full committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.
The bill would end a policy enacted by Congress in the mid-1970s in response to the Arab oil embargo, which critics see as antiquated.
They argue that the U.S. 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.
“We’ve flipped the script on energy,” said Upton and energy and power subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., in a joint statement. “Our new-found abundance has been a game changer, making President [Gerald] Ford’s oil export ban obsolete.
“We have taken a thoughtful approach to reconsidering oil exports, and the time to lift the ban is now,” the lawmakers said.
The Energy Department’s independent analysis division, the Energy Information Administration, issued a study last week showing that allowing exports would not raise the price of gasoline, as many lawmakers fear.
Lawmakers who support lifting the restriction tout the study as proof that lifting the ban would be in the best interest of the U.S..
Oil producers, represented by groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, used the report to urge Congress to take up the oil ban as soon as they returned from the August break.
But a group of refiners issued a report that counters the Energy Information Administration’s findings, saying that removing the restrictions on oil exports would drive fuel prices higher.
The Crude Coalition, representing oil refiners that oppose lifting the ban, released polling data Wednesday that showed a majority of voters in the swing states of Illinois and Pennsylvania do not support lifting the ban.
Voting to lift the ban could harm some congressional Republicans’ re-election bids in 2016. That’s the message the group is taking to the Hill.
“We are sharing these poll results far and wide on the Hill,” said Jay Hauck, the coalition’s spokesman. The group is disseminating the results among the House and Senate leadership, as well as individual state delegations.
The states are home to Republican senators Mark Kirk of Illinois and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who face the challenge of holding onto their seats next year.
The Senate energy committee passed legislation lifting the oil ban ahead of the August break. Chairwoman Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is planning to bring the bill to the full Senate as soon as floor time becomes available, said committee spokesman Robert Dillon.
The vote in committee was along strict party lines, with Democrats opposing the measure without further study to determine the impact on consumers.
API and oil producer groups say the new Energy Department study should alleviate those concerns, pointing out that the effects on consumers would be negligible. The study says gasoline prices would fall if the ban were lifted.
