And I’m not sure why the “import and export” of oil is mentioned here. I guess there are some marginal reductions in emissions if you move it around, but the big supertankers are pretty efficient.
Really it sounds more like some ploy to keep America using less oil, without outright saying that, and, well... the idea must date to before we became one of the top producers in the world. I guess it could work for Europeans if they’re really, really willing to suffer for it (and it does spite Russia, which isn’t nothing in terms of European geopolitics)
I mention oil because it's a genuine part of the political window today (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Tom Steyer all supported banning oil exports, but I'm having trouble finding primary sources; Biden also may limit oil exports). What people discuss today, they may do tomorrow.
I understand what you're reading into, but the main reasons to limit oil exports and imports are simpler than that. First, as you say, the USA is a massive oil producer. We compete directly with OPEC. We are also one of the largest oil consumers. Unsurprisingly, politicians like Bernie therefore have reasoned that it would be a sane protectionist and mercantile move to limit oil exports, keeping USA oil in the USA and thus limiting the need for oil imports. It's just cheaper that way; while not all oil is alike, crude oil is fungible enough to make this feasible.
Also like you say, spiting Russia is important, although OPEC may fall apart before too long. There's a lot of handwaving here and anything could happen.
> It's just cheaper that way; while not all oil is alike, crude oil is fungible enough to make this feasible.
If it really was cheaper that way, there would be no need to intervene.
But maybe some of the expense is caused by regulations which don't make sense. Could I get you to consider repealing the Jones Act so that it's legal to ship oil between different ports in the US using tankers? (Technically it doesn't make the tankers illegal on the face of it. It just requires them to be US built, owned, and crewed by citizens, like all other use of boats in the US. There are no tankers built in the US today; there aren't many boats built at all. Puerto Rico and Hawaii suffer in particular as a result must import key supplies from outside the US.) Yeah, you'd still be burning oil to move oil, but it's not like sending it in trains and pipelines is free either.
It would be sad if their reaction is this pathetic. We need much more drastic changes than that right now, let alone 18 years from now.
The thermostat matters fuck-all compared to modernizing the insulation and getting renewable power to the house.