Delusional twat.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski is sponsoring a bill to lift the ban on exporting American crude oil. Send U.S. oil abroad, she argues, so America can "compete against our foes in a way that doesn't involve sending our troops in and boots on the ground."
In other words, let the U.S. and Iran go head to head on the world oil market.
At a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday, she asked why the U.S. would lift sanctions on Iran so it can export its oil, yet keep a ban in place on American oil exports.
"We're going to let Iran go out onto the global market and engage in sales of their oil, allowing them to amass resources and wealth as a benefit of this," Murkowski said.
How we got here
The ban on U.S. oil exports has been in place since the 1970s. It was created to keep gas prices low at home and for national security reasons. The thinking was to keep U.S. oil at home in case anything happened to prevent America from importing enough oil, especially during war.
We should "make sure we hold the key to our energy security, rather than exporting it to the world," New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat, said Tuesday.
But Murkowski called U.S. oil exports a "diplomatic tool" to pressure Iran. Currently, the U.S. only outright bans exports of crude oil, horse meat for slaughter and Western red cedar.
Iran has the fourth largest oil and gas reserves in the world, according to U.S. government estimates. One of Iran's priorities in the nuclear deal is to have sanctions lifted so the country can export its oil freely again.
Energy experts believe oil prices -- which are near their lowest levels since the Great Recession -- will fall even further if Iran can export oil again.
http://www.ktuu.com/news/business/some-us-senators-want-to-start-oil-war-with-iran/34405166
