House Dems request crude exports hearing

E&E News
By Nick Juliano
February 5, 2014

Democratic leaders on the House Natural Resources Committee yesterday requested that their chairman schedule a hearing on the ongoing debate over whether to lift the ban on U.S. crude oil.

The letter comes amid increasing attention to the four-decade-old crude export ban and demonstrates the tricky politics surrounding the question. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) almost singlehandedly put the issue on Congress' agenda this year, following a few months of under-the-radar warnings from the oil industry that domestic shale oil production would eventually fall if the resulting light oil could not be exported.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, of which Murkowski is ranking member, held a hearing on the issue last week -- the first in 25 years. But several House Republicans, among other traditional oil industry supporters, have shown relatively little enthusiasm for grappling with whether to lift the ban.

House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and the top Democrats on several subcommittees yesterday said more attention should be paid to the issue and requested that Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) schedule a hearing as soon as possible. They warned that lifting the export ban would allow oil companies to earn greater returns on world markets but that expanded energy production could threaten public lands and the environment.

Spokespeople for committee Republicans did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter last night. But Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), who leads the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee, told E&E Daily last month that he did not have any immediate plans to convene a crude exports hearing.

Separately, Lamborn's subcommittee has a hearing scheduled this afternoon to examine the effect of federal "red tape" on U.S. energy production on public lands.