Exporting U.S. Oil Products: Selling America’s Energy Security10 Feb
In a recent article entitled, “Drill here, sell there, pay more,” Representative Ed Markey, wrote, “For the first time in 62 years, since Harry Truman was president, the United States was a net exporter of oil products. An estimated $88 billion worth of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other petroleum products was sent to overseas markets last year.”
Exported diesel fuel also includes home heating oil that has been exported in greater quantities for the past several years. I wrote about this matter in my blog of October 18, 2011. That post noted, “Oil companies are making profits from exported distillate fuels and federal subsidies, while state and city government are vainly attempting to provide heating oil assistance to financially stressed families. Although oil companies are free to sell products to whomever, nevertheless they are not entitled to totally unnecessary subsidies. Some portion of those subsidies could be diverted to poor families for home heating oil payment assistance, while the remaining subsidies could support renewable energy R&D, especially to decrease the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) generated from solar PV and off shore wind.”
Representative Markey concluded, “An energy agenda that places oil above all is not helping Americans find work or achieve energy security. As we build America’s clean-energy future, we also must also ensure that our domestic oil and natural-gas resources stay here in America.”
Tags: Ed Markey, Exported OIl Products, Home Heating Oil, Levelized Cost of Electricity, Oil Company Profits, Selling U.S. Oil ProductsOne Response to “Exporting U.S. Oil Products: Selling America’s Energy Security”
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Remember when I said a few weeks ago that, unfortunately, no amount of conservation, nor of drilling, here in the US will get us out of the energy crunch? Any demand we can eliminate by conservation will be more than made up for by the overwhelming demand from other countries, thus keeping the price high no matter what. We may end up pumping out the bulk of our own crude, only for it to be refined here (with the profit going to big oil) and then sold overseas (profit going to big oil again), while we the people lose out. And for THAT the oil companies receive subsidies, probably because they can claim they are helping our overall exports, i.e. improving the balance of payments. How badly do we want to export the very thing of which we are in most need ourselves? This could easily capsize our fragile economic recovery 🙁