
Congressional Leaders Agree to Lift 40-Year Ban on Oil Exports - jonbaer
http://www.wsj.com/articles/congressional-leaders-agree-to-lift-40-year-ban-on-oil-exports-1450242995
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simonh
Non-pay-walled reporting on this[1].

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/12/16/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/12/16/democrats-
give-up-fight-on-oil-export-ban-after-40-years/)

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seibelj
Finally! The ban doesn't make any economic sense to me. It's a free market,
let them sell it globally.

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simonh
It made sense during times of oil shortages, in an Irish famine "Don't export
food for profit while the local people starve" sense. While oil prices were
rising ever higher, there was a perpetual risk that another oil shock could be
round the corner. In the current circumstances though this is clearly the
right thing to do.

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relkor
It was my understanding that the drop in oil price was engineered to screw the
Russians. Opening up exports of oil indicates the the leverage on the Saudis
has gone stale, and they are making serious noises about limiting production
again. Washington needs the ability to keep oil prices low because they have
still not found a long term solution to keeping Eastern Europe vaugely NATO
friendly.

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varjag
That would require too much coordination among several fairly inept national
administrations. I'd bet it on a real macroeconomic trend.

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relkor
I suppose trade deals would require too much coordination between those inept
national administrators. I guess it is also too bad that there are no
international standards like TCP/IP becuase that would require coordination as
well. And its a good thing there is no coordination, that way we dont't have
any international spying programs on citizens.

/s

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varjag
Yes you are quite correct: the trade deals require an order of decade to make
them work, and that's among friendly governments with aligned interests. And
true, the successful and now notoriously known spying projects with global
reach are mostly single agency efforts.

But I'm not sure why TCP/IP is there: it's an institutional standard adopted
later internationally. The IP stack doesn't even quite map to that neat ISO 7
level hierarchy conjured by international panel in their ivory tower.

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drallison
How will lifting a 40-year old ban on oil exports reduce the global
consumption of fossil fuels which are driving global warming? Given the
current existential disaster (aka "global warming") anything which encourages
the consumption of fossil fuels is contraindicated.

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xhrpost
At least something positive? "In return, Republicans are dropping their
opposition to lengthy extensions of the solar and wind tax credits that will
give huge boosts to renewable energy projects."

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delinka
For whom is it positive that these tax credits will end? Not to mention, I
find it ironic that Republicans were opposed to continued tax credits for
anyone ever...

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xhrpost
It's the opposition that is ending, not the credits.

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delinka
I realize this is now a week old but ...

I am indeed asking about the end of the tax credits. Your comment quotes
"lengthy extensions of [...] tax credits" \- so apparently, without indefinite
extension those tax credits will come to an end at some point.

