Lift the Ban on U.S. Oil Exports

Under current U.S. law, crude oil produced in the United States cannot be exported without a license, while domestic crude oil production and imports from Canada could exceed six million barrels per day through 2040. Tim Boersma and Charles Ebinger urge President Obama to ask Congress to lift the ban on crude oil exports.

[hcwcars]

lets get it out of the ground as fast as we can and sell it for the sole benefit of the 1% and leave nothing for our grand children ? 99% of the people need to find and string up every rich person we can as fast as we can ! They could careless how many old people and children are freezing and hungry living in cars !!

[antred]

Sometimes capitalism just doesn't seem to make any sense. The U.S. is (and has been since the 1940s .... and will always remain) a net IMPORTER of crude oil, but somehow shipping large amounts of crude oil abroad (and burning off additional valuable energy in the process) is considered a bright idea. Go figure.

Here are the numbers, straight from the EIA's website:

domestic consumption: 18.9 million barrels / day
domestic production: 5.7 million barrels / day
the difference: 13.2 million barrels / day



These numbers are admittedly a bit old ... domestic production should probably be approaching 8 million barrels / day (or have surpassed that already) and consumption should be down a little in the wake of the economical crisis ... even so, that still doesn't change the fact that the U.S. relies on imports for a large share of its crude oil consumption.