Truth takes a hit in the battle over U.S. oil export ban
Last week a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to end the ban after a Senate committee voted in July to do the same. A vote by the full House and Senate could be near.
The proponents are careful NOT to say that the United States is energy-independent and so has oil to spare. Such claims made in the past backfired because it is too easy to look this up. Net U.S. imports of crude oil were almost 7 million barrels per day (mbpd) in the week ending September 4. That’s out of about 15.6 mbpd of liquid fuels consumed domestically.*
Yet, it is this state of affairs that the proponents of lifting the export ban label as “abundance.” Here’s the relevant quote from the website of the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance (DEPA), a consortium of U.S. oil drillers: “Thanks to the genius of America’s independent oil and natural gas producers, the world is moving from a concept of ‘resource scarcity’ toward ‘resource abundance.'” (So, the world is not moving toward actualabundance, just the concept of abundance. But, I’m nitpicking.)
In another piece entitled “From Scarcity To Abundance: Why The Strategic Petroleum Reserve Is Unnecessary” the group is more bold, saying that the supposed “abundance” is right here in the United States:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
