Saudi oil strike renews debate over U.S. energy dominance
Never let a crisis go to waste, as the saying goes.
Those trying to shape U.S. energy policy are heeding that advice — versions of which have been attributed to Winston Churchill and Rahm Emanuel — in the wake of a series of suspected drone attacks targeting Saudi Arabia's oil facilities.
Those seeking to wean the United States off of petroleum point to the precariousness of the world's oil supply as all the more reason for the U.S. to double down on alternatives to gasoline-powered cars and other clean technology.
But those in the oil and natural gas business, along with their allies in Washington, say the problem isn't with petroleum itself — it's where it comes from. They point to the strikes against the desert kingdom as reason for the United States to secure sources of oil and gas within its own borders.
At the center of the forthcoming U.S. response to the strike is President Trump, who is already arguing that the U.S. position as the world's top oil producer helps insulate it from the loss of Saudi oil.
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To address the shortfall, Trump said he has authorized the release of oil from the nation's strategic reserves — “if needed,” he tweeted — to blunt the impact on American motorists. The blasts at facilities in the districts of Khurais and Abqaiq forced Saudi officials to suspend production of 5.7 million barrels of crude per day. That's nearly 6 percent of the 100 million barrels consumed every day.
But Sen. Edward J. Markey, one of Trump's chief environmental critics in Congress, called tapping the strategic oil supply, stored in caverns under Louisiana and Texas, a foolish waste of resources.
Putting an even finer point on this criticism, the Massachusetts Democrat, one of the chief sponsors of the Green New Deal, reiterated his call for an economywide transition away from greenhouse gases in the wake of the attack. Markey also promised to introduce legislation to reinstate a ban on selling U.S. crude abroad.
“We need to end, once and for all, our dependence on oil from the Middle East and the kinds of volatility that comes with unrest in the region,” Markey said in a statement. “Energy independence won’t be found in a Saudi Oil field, but in an American solar farm.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/09/17/the-energy-202-saudi-oil-strike-renews-debate-over-u-s-energy-dominance/5d7fa82f602ff171a5d735fa/