Ban protects jobs, security
The plan by Congress to grant the wish of profit-fat oil corporations to export vital U.S. crude oil recklessly threatens national security and carelessly jeopardizes American refinery workers’ jobs.
The four-decade-old ban protects Americans from the fuel shortages that damaged the economy during the Carter administration. America still doesn’t produce sufficient oil to meet its needs, so exporting it makes no sense. It could result in the United States being forced to import even more oil than it does now, making the United States dependent on foreign nations for a crucial resource.
In addition, exporting oil will cost U.S. refinery workers their jobs. The oil they would have converted to gasoline and other products will, instead, be shipped overseas to be refined, and then hauled back to the United States as gasoline.
The ban on exporting U.S. crude helped save jobs at two refineries in Philadelphia just four years ago.
Almost simultaneously, Sunoco and Phillips66 announced their intention to close three refineries there. A study by a state agency showed that would have cost Pennsylvania 36,000 direct and indirect jobs and $566 million in tax revenue.
My union, the United Steelworkers, worked with state and federal officials to find corporations willing to buy and operate the facilities.
Access to U.S. shale oil, coupled with the oil export ban, facilitated finding new operators. If Congress had lifted the oil export ban in 2011, both refineries likely would be shuttered today.
Lifting the ban threatens communities dependent on refinery jobs across this country because oil companies may choose to ship oil overseas for processing.
The world market is awash in cheap oil, so dumping additional U.S. crude into it will not drive up the price sufficiently to gin up U.S. production. Big Oil may get a couple of extra dollars a barrel by selling on the world market, but lifting the ban is bad for American consumers, workers and security.
Former USW International vice president Gary Beevers retired Dec. 1 and headed the union’s 50-year-old National Oil Bargaining Program.