{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=3b6094aa-9474-49b7-b85d-409d979b6891", "Barrasso: End the American Crude Oil Export Ban", "2015-09-22", "2015", "2015-09", "Republican", "House", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor calling on the Obama administration to work with Congress to end to the ban on U.S. crude oil exports.\r\nTranscript of Senator Barrassos remarks:\r\nLast week a bipartisan majority of Senators, members of this body, voted to try to stop President Obamas dangerous and desperate deal with Iran.\r\nThe president wants to give Iran relief from economic sanctions that the world had imposed.\r\nI believe that President Obama traded away these sanctionshe traded away them too readily  and he got too little in return.\r\nThese sanctions included limits on the sale of Iranian oil.\r\nNow, according to one estimate, Iran could soon begin to export as much as a million additional barrels of oil each and every day.\r\nThe money Iran makes from these sales will go, as I know, to shoring up its economy and it will go to building up Irans military.\r\nSome of it will undoubtedly go to supporting global terrorists.\r\nThats what President Obama traded away.\r\nIran will be allowed to sell its oil anywhere in the world  and American oil producers are largely prohibited from selling American oil anywhere in the world.\r\nApparently, thats exactly the way the White House wants to keep things.\r\nThere is legislation working its way through Congress right now to lift the ban on American crude oil exports.\r\nThe Obama administration has said that it doesnt support the bill.\r\nThey think that Congress shouldnt even get to decide.\r\nThey think it should be up to Washington bureaucrats in the Obama administration to make the decisions.\r\nThe administration thinks that they are the only ones who should be allowed to decide whether the oil export ban gets lifted.\r\nIt was the Obama administration that let Iran off the hook by signing such a terrible deal.\r\nIt was the Obama administration that now wants to lift the sanctions  and give Iran access to more than a hundred billion dollars.\r\nShould the Obama administration be the ones to decide whether Iran gets to sell its oil without American competition? Is that what the president wants?\r\nWhy is the Obama administration so interested in making sure Irans economy gets back on its feet faster?\r\nThe president ought to be focused on helping America's economy, not Irans economy.\r\nRight now, American producers export about 500,000 barrels of oil a day. Where does it go? It goes to Canada.\r\nIran is exporting about one million barrels a day, but once President Obama lifts the sanctions, that number is going to jump to almost two million barrels a day.\r\nSo President Obama favors a situation where Iran will be allowed to export four times as much oil as America does.\r\nAnd Senate Democrats who voted to help the President lift the sanctions, they want the same thing. Thats what they say, four to one, Iran over the United States.\r\nRepublicans want something very different.\r\nIf the export ban is lifted, U.S. energy producers could export another 1.6 million barrels a day.\r\nOur daily oil exports would jump from half a million barrels to about two million barrelsthats what we wantlift the sanctions.\r\nAt the same time, Republicans voted to keep the sanctions in place against Iran.\r\nSo under Republican plans, America would be exporting twice as much oil as Iran.\r\nSo the Democrats vote four for Iran, one for the United States. The Republicans voted two for the United States, one for Iran.\r\nThats the difference between what Washington Democrats want, and what Senate Republicans want.\r\nThe Brookings Institution looked into this in September 2014, they came out with a report.\r\nThey looked at a variety of different scenarios for how much oil America might export.\r\nThey found that for every scenario they looked at, there are positive gains for U.S. households by the United States being able to export more crude oil.\r\nThe Government Accountability Office said the same thing last year.\r\nIt said that Removing export restrictions is expected to increase the size of the economy, thats the U.S. economy, with implications for employment, investment, public revenue, and trade. Those are key for America.\r\nThese studies and others predict that adding American crude oil to global supplies could ultimately reduce gasoline prices right here at home.\r\nBy how much you ask? Well, one study estimated that it would save American consumers an average of almost combined $6 billion a year.\r\nThis study found that the savings would help increase the U.S. economy by about $38 billion by 2020.\r\nNew oil exports could support an additional 300,000 jobs by 2020.\r\nThese are huge benefits for the American economy, American families  all because we free up American energy, we allow it to compete on worlds markets.\r\nThere would also be benefits for Americas foreign policy.\r\nMore oil would reduce prices worldwide.\r\nThat means that the other countries that export a lot of oil wont be able to make as much money off of their own oil salestheyd have to compete with us.\r\nThis includes Iran  it includes countries like Russia and Venezuela.\r\nThat would undercut the ability of those countries to do things that arent in our own, Americas best interest.\r\nIt would also help American allies around the world.\r\nPoland gets 96 percent of its oil from Russia.\r\nWhen theyre negotiating to buy more oil, they would love the opportunity and the option of American oil as an alternative.\r\nBelgium gets 60 percent of its oil from Russia and Saudi Arabia.\r\nJapan gets 75 percent of its oil from Russia and the Middle East.\r\nAll of these countries  and many more around the world  could benefit from U.S. oil being sold on the world market.\r\nOf course, another country that would really be helped is Israel.\r\nPresident Obamas reckless deal with Iran has put Israel in a much more dangerous situation.\r\nEven the White House seems to recognize this.\r\nThe Obama administration says that it plans to offer Israel more military aid  aid to be used to bolster Israels defenses against Iran.\r\nThe administration should not stop at military aid. It should also offer Israel the opportunity to import American oil.\r\nIsrael has trouble buying oil from many of its neighboring countries because they dont recognize the State of Israel.\r\nNow that leaves places like Russia and Iraqi Kurdistan as its largest suppliers of crude oil.\r\nIf the Israelis had the opportunity to buy from American oil producers instead, now that would be a big help to make sure that their oil supply is stable and secure.\r\nIt would also help repair some of the significant damage that the presidents Iran deal did to relations between our two countries.\r\nThis should be an easy call.\r\nEnding the ban on U.S. oil exports would be good for American families, good for our national security, and good for our allies.\r\nThe Obama administration should change course now. The Obama administration should work with Congress to end this ban on American energy exports as quickly as possible.\r\nThis past Saturday marked seven years since a Canadian company filed its application to build the Keystone XL pipeline.\r\nIt has been buried in the bureaucratic limbo of the State Department ever since.\r\nThat pipeline would provide American jobs just like more oil exports would.\r\nAmericans should not have to wait another seven years for Washington to lift the oil export ban, and unleash the power of American energy.\r\n                                     ###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=3b6094aa-9474-49b7-b85d-409d979b6891"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8623236790299416, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}