Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush on Tuesday is expected to come out in support of lifting a 40-year-old ban on oil exports and approving the Keystone XL pipeline, as part of a move to flesh out his campaign’s energy agenda.
The speech will be given at the headquarters of Rice Energy Inc., an oil and gas company in the heart of the Marcellus shale region in Canonsburg, Pa., near Pittsburgh.
A campaign aide said Bush will “pledge” to lift the restrictions placed on exporting crude oil, while also working to hasten the export of natural gas. Shale producers have supporting lifting the ban to expand access to the global market as the nation has grown into the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world as a result of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Bush, who ranks sixth in the Washington Examiner’s presidential power rankings, is also expected to lay out his plan to approve the embattled Keystone XL pipeline to bring oil from Canada’s tar sands to U.S. refiners on the Gulf Coast, the aide told Reuters. The Obama administration has been reviewing the project for nearly seven years, and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently came out against the project. She said she would block it upon becoming president. Republicans support moving forward with the project as a jobs creator.
Republicans in the House are expected to vote on a measure this week to lift the ban on oil exports, which was put in place during the 1970s in the wake of the Arab oil embargo. Although the House is likely to pass the measure, observers say a companion bill will have a much harder time in the Senate. And even if it does survive, the White House has given every indication the president would veto it.
Other presidential candidates have come out in support of lifting the ban, but it appears Bush wants to add more meat to the bone. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida says on his website that lifting the ban would be one of his first orders of business upon becoming president. He says ending the policy would increase jobs and increase the flow of investment into U.S. businesses. But Bush appears to want to go further by extending support to pushing for more natural gas exports as well.
