Congress Gives Gifts to Corporations (at our expense) Again.

Congress, as part of the omnibus spending bill, just voted - on a bipartisan vote - to repeal the oil-export ban.  This is only good for the oil companies (and maybe a minor help to oil-importing countries), but bad for the US and the world.  It confirms that Congress is fundamentally a corporate kleptocracy.

Here are the reasons why repealing the oil export ban is a bad idea:

1) It will become harder to leave oil in the ground.  If you don't leave oil in the ground, you can't prevent it being burned.  If it is burned, it contributes to climate change.

Even if the US goes to mostly or exclusively electric or hydrogen powered vehicles, US oil could be (and most likely would be) exported to countries that are still using gasoline or diesel powered vehicles, as the oil companies look for new markets.  The pressure on those countries to switch away from fossil fuels is reduced, as US oil would provide an additional source of supply, and likely put downward pressure on global oil prices.

The result: more money for oil companies (who make most of their money by just pulling crude oil out of the ground), more oil burned, and an additional contribution to climate change.

2) More trashed and ugly places. By increasing the demand for US oil (because there would suddenly be many more potential buyers), there will be an incentive to extract more oil from US sources.  But since oilfield production declines over time, you can't just turn up the flow from existing fields - you need to drill more, and in new places.  Resource extraction activities, like oil and gas production, mining, and timber production, tend to trash the local environment, creating scarred and desolate wastelands.  So if you increase oil production (which is the intent of this legislation) you trash more of the US landscape.

In addition, resource extraction is generally a low-value activity. Think of coal towns, other mining towns, lumber towns, oil towns - those are not the places with high-value economies like Silicon Valley or Los Angeles or New York.

3) Energy security.  If you believe that it is important for the US to have domestic supplies of oil that it can turn to in case of a disruption of overseas sources, the repeal of the export ban eviscerates that.  Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource.  Oilfield production declines over time, and we have already depleted many of our domestic fields, in Pennsylvania, Texas, and California.  If US oil prices are competitive (and they likely will be), Japan and Korea and China and India and Germany and Italy and France will be buying US oil.

With that increased demand, US oilfields will be depleted more rapidly.  Once they are empty, they are empty, and are no longer available to provide oil to the US if there is a disruption in overseas supply. (You could try to drill more - but see #2.  And then those new fields would be depleted as well.) So energy security from domestic oil will be reduced.

4) Corporate kleptocracy. The trade-off that the Democrats got for supporting repeal of the oil export ban is an extension of tax credits for renewable electric generation; while these tax credits have helped expand the use of renewable resources, they are also a corporate subsidy (albeit for renewable energy developers rather than oil companies).

So instead of doing something of real benefit, such as passing a carbon tax, or a federal requirement for a minimum amount of renewable generation, Congress just added one corporate subsidy onto another corporate giveaway. Feh.