1. Congress has ended lousy oil export ban

The left’s original argument against lifting the nation’s short-sighted oil export ban went something like this: We need to ban the exporting of U.S. petroleum because we need to work toward energy independence. In other words, we ought not be dependent on volatile Middle East nations to provide our oil.

The left’s more recent argument against lifting the oil export ban goes something like this: We need to discourage the use of fossil fuels, particularly oil. If we use those products here, at least we have energy efficiency standards to mitigate the environmental impact of oil, and we can wean ourselves off the stuff. In other words, we ought not be dependent on fossil fuels at all.

But the most recent argument against lifting the ban is different. It goes something like this: Ending the oil export ban would be an empty gesture.

Now, if the first two arguments hold any truth at all, then the third argument can’t. Either lifting the ban would have a substantial impact, or it wouldn’t. In other words, these arguments cancel each other out.

Here’s that latest argument, as presented by the Bloomberg View’s Stephen Mihm.

“The long history of oil suggests the ban is of little consequence, whether it stays or goes,” Mihm contends. “In fact, imports and exports of crude oil are largely irrelevant to energy independence. What matters are the much bigger, tectonic shifts in production and consumption, which wouldn’t be affected by a change in the law.”

Mihm recounts the history of oil production – and it seems a wonderment that it’s essentially less than a century and a half – and shows that at one time, America truly was energy independent.

“Crude pumped from domestic wells fueled the allied military victories in World War I and II, which sealed America’s rise as the pre-eminent power,” he notes. “Throughout this period, the U.S. was ‘energy independent,’ though no one used that phrase, because it had never been otherwise.”

Still, he adds, “a single-minded focus on imports and exports in this era – or in any era – is to miss the big picture.”

And he’s right, as far as this goes. Energy policy is more than trade policy; it’s also foreign policy. There’s more at stake than gas prices. In some cases (such as in the 1970s oil embargo) there’s national security at risk.

Since that time, though, America’s consumption of oil has risen steadily, while its capacity to export has dwindled. Even at the time the ban was enacted in 1975, it affected about 2 million barrels, compared to the 6 billion barrels America consumed then. That’s small change, Mihm says.

“So should the ban be lifted?” he asks. “History has a ready answer: Who cares?”

The real point is that if Mihm’s argument is valid, and he has lots of numbers to back it up, then it invalidates all the other arguments made by the left against lifting the oil export ban.

Furthermore, it serves not as an argument against, but as an argument for lifting the ban. If lifting the ban is an “empty gesture,” then why not lift it and gain the benefits?