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A better argument would be whether there are any restrictions at all that, during a world shortage, would prevent companies producing oil from exporting it to o
by XorNot 5y ago
A better argument would be whether there are any restrictions at all that, during a world shortage, would prevent companies producing oil from exporting it to other parts of the world to the detriment of local US consumers.
There aren't, so the US isn't independent on anything: the regular citizen will get priced out of the market regardless of their need the moment there's profit to be made elsewhere.
- dariusj18 5y agoIn an emergency situation the executive should step in and create emergency orders in preparation for Congress passing laws to deal with it.
- radicaldreamer 5y agoGovernment can easily restrict international sales, just like they did for vaccines (and routinely do for encryption software/hardware and other goods).
- philipkglass 5y agoThe United States banned crude oil exports from the 1970s until 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_and_Conservation_Act#Crude_oil_export_ban,_1977-2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_and_Conservation... https://ballotpedia.org/Crude_oil_export_ban https://ballotpedia.org/Crude_oil_export_ban It didn't seem to affect retail fuel prices very much either way.
- mulmen 5y agoAlmost like there is a cartel manipulating prices.
- eyelidlessness 5y agoGovernments manipulate markets, news at 11.
- mulmen 5y agoYeah it’s so common there’s even a taxonomy.
- Scoundreller 5y agoThe impact wasn’t what you thought: it turned the US into the biggest exporter of refined products. In other words, refining security/oversaturation. A lot of neighbouring countries basically got the US to refine oil at a discount because it was the only way to get excess oil out.
- 8note 5y agoThere's no current threat of being priced out, the major oil producers are too busy trying to get market share on low cost oil. Going forward, will this ever be an issue? Peak oil is coming from societies moving away from oil and adopting renewables. By the time OPEC et Al start raising their prices, they will be irrelevant to most US consumers
- staticautomatic 5y agoHonest question: what about plastic and other non-fuel uses?
- azinman2 5y agoI’d love to see a point where drop in oil consumption means plastic becomes expensive, and instead we can finally find better alternatives that don’t harm the planet and people so much.
- Scoundreller 5y agoThey’ll just get burned. Plastic is just an intermediate step between oil and thermal energy.
- elihu 5y agoHaving to pay market prices isn't the end of the world; the U.S. is a wealthy country, so we can afford it more easily than a lot of others. (It would, of course, hurt poor people the most.) I think restrictions on exports are a good idea, but based on climate rather than protecting cheap domestic fuel. I mean, why do we sell coal to China when we know we're eventually going to be paying the externalized cost of CO2 emissions when they burn it, just the same as if we burned it here? Better to restrict sales (especially to countries we aren't getting along well with) except in situations where it makes sense strategically (i.e. selling to Europe to counteract the leverage Russia has because they can turn off a substantial portion of their natural gas supply).