Drew Johnson: Ending the oil export ban would be important victory for Congress

weWashington Examiner | Monday, December 7, 2015 | Drew Johnson

Republican-held majorities in both the House and Senate have missed one golden opportunity after the next to force President Obama's hand heading into next year's elections.

Rather than spending this past year showcasing the ideological and common-sense divide between the GOP and the president, Republican lawmakers have been content to sit on their hands. Instead of passing scores of well-liked bills and daring the president to commit political suicide by vetoing legislation the public overwhelmingly supports, GOP leaders let mountains of popular proposals pile up on their desks.

Now, with only about two weeks left on this year's legislative calendar, there is just one more chance left for Republicans to take a principled stand for what's best for America: the battle over ending the ban on crude oil exports.

The congressional ban on exporting unrefined domestic oil was imposed in 1975, following the Arab oil embargo, as a method to ensure Americans had a stable oil supply. Thanks to new technologies, the United States recently surpassed Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer. America produces more oil than we can use. As a result, the policy prohibiting oil exports has far outlived whatever usefulness it had 40 years ago.

Read the full editorial here

Drew Johnson is a Senior Scholar at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

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