Bush would roll back Obama’s climate rules

Bush announced a multi-prong approach that includes lifting the ban on crude oil exports and approving the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as rolling back President Obama’s climate rules. All are long-held priorities for the Republican Party, with a major vote on lifting the export ban expected to be held this week.

“Energy is not just a sector of our economy. It is also an input into every other economic sector,” Bush said in a policy statement issued on his website Tuesday. “In short, it means more money in people’s pockets, allowing them more freedom to make more choices for themselves and their children.”

Bush, who is sixth in the Washington Examiner’s presidential power rankings, will lay out his energy policy later Tuesday at the headquarters of natural gas producer Rice Energy near Pittsburgh in the heart of shale country. The plan supports the advances in oil and natural gas production from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which releases fossil fuels from shale rock deposites deep underground.

Bush’s energy policy has several priorities, including:

• “Lifting the ban on crude oil exports and liberalizing natural gas exports,” which he said “would create hundreds of thousands of additional jobs and significantly lower net energy costs within two years.” He said “various studies indicate retail gasoline prices would drop by approximately 6 cents a gallon within two to three years of lifting the crude oil ban.” The ban on oil exports was established in the 1970s in response to the Arab oil embargo.
• Approving the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast. “Its approval would increase [gross domestic product] by over $3 billion and support 42,000 jobs while the pipeline is under construction. Once built, it will be an essential piece of infrastructure more safely and cheaply moving both Canadian and U.S. resources to consumers,” Bush said. He said Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton “have badly politicized” the permitting process for the project, delaying it for seven years. “After seven years and an unprecedented level of environmental review, there is now no credible reason for the president to stand in the way of this privately funded project.”

• Targeting the “carbon rule” and overregulation. Bush will lay out his plans to reduce the burden of too much government regulation. He says he will begin by taking aim at the administration’s centerpiece for fighting climate change, called the Clean Power Plan. “The damaging effect such heavy-handed regulation has, not only on energy security but on American households, is largely hidden to the average consumer,” Bush said. “For instance, unless it is quickly addressed by the courts, in the near-term, Obama’s carbon rule will increase electricity prices for everyone and threaten the system’s reliability.”

• Defer decisions to the states and American Indian tribes on energy development. “At least two states, Alaska and Virginia, have expressed an interest in further developing energy resources but have been thwarted or constrained by the Obama administration.” He said Obama “has severely limited the extent to which these lands can be explored and developed. Even more extreme, Hillary Clinton has indicated she would flatly prohibit drilling off the northern coast of Alaska.” “This must change. Washington should generally defer to the will of states and tribes. Their citizens and leaders are best able to weigh the benefits and costs of oil and gas development.”