Ed Markey — Senator Markey Discusses Oil Exports with National Journal's Ben Geman

Thank You senator I wanted to start with the topic that you touched up we mentioned the emissions of methane from oil and natural gas drilling and that leads into the broader question of climate change and other topic you of course have been very active on for for quite a long time what signal do you think it would send internationally if the US were a lift or ease its restrictions on crude oil exports at a time when we're gearing up for the Paris conference on climate change and if there's an agreement struck in Paris it will be time to implement that would that cause other countries to sort of lose faith in the kind of climate change commitment of the United States well you know there's an old saying that you can't preach temperance from a barstool you can't have a beer in your hand until junior drinking's bad boy can't have a cigar in your mouth and saying smokings bad boy so to the extent to which of this additional fracking takes place in our country which so obviously runs contrary to the consumer interest in our country but invokes all of these additional environmental concerns I think would cause many around the world to cast an arched eyebrow towards this preaching that we're doing and so to the especially in the same context where the solar tax breaks are dying the wind tax breaks have already died there's no efforts to actually have some national standards for building construction across the country to reduce energy consumption so it looks more and more like it's just a not all of the above strategy but and oil above all strategy and that that doesn't appear to be any other strategy but an oil strategy and that fossil fuel strategy is of course something that we're trying to tell the rest of the world is something by the end of the 21st century we just have to have changed politically that attention to the wind and solar and other green energy tax provisions if this train somehow leaving the station do you think that you would be able to perhaps salvage isn't the right word but are you open at all to some type of agreement in which as I asked the as I asked senator Heitkamp that relaxation of the band is somehow tethered to extension of the ITC or the PTC or other provisions well this is a permanent relaxation ban on the exploitation of oil from the United States so are you talking about a permanent extension of the wind tax breaks a permanent extension of the solar tax breaks are you talking about the the oil industry not opposing the continued increase in the fuel economy standards of the vehicles which we drive gets they come up for review by the way in 2017 they don't go all the way to 54.5 without that review you know the chance is not happening it's I wish there was a number negative zero but the oil industry wants to keep their tax breaks the fossil fuel industry wants to keep their tax breaks and make sure that the other tax breaks die because ultimately those newer technologies wind and solar that whole panoply of new issues is in fact what they fear the most it's the true competition in the marketplace so it's a wonderful I guess theoretical discussion which we can have but in the real world that's not happening that's why this one issue has been pulled out of the energy bill because there can't be any grand deal that is inside the larger energy bill because there's just no way that the coal industry is going to allow for wind and solar we get those tax breaks without huge fight the auto industry than the industry will be talking about how difficult it will be technologically to continue to meet the increased fuel economy standards so having done this for such a long period of time I realized that that's highly unlikely to happen I don't think there's any scenario under which we could imagine the fossil fuel industry to support a national renewable electricity standard for the whole country those are the kinds of concessions you would have to get and those concessions in my opinion as long as the Republicans control the house and the Senate are pretty much non-existent so long-term or permanent extension of renewable credits as well as an Ras renewable ech tricity standard continued strong progress on fuel economy standards is there how much of your caucus do you think is with you on that if presented with a vote on crude experts how much of your caucus would set the bar where you have said it uh I just don't think that offers coming poet I mean it's a beautiful discussion you know who would win a fight Superman a back-end okay so fascinating discussion for a five year old to have okay it's a it's a great discussion but that offer is not going to be put on the table okay it just isn't going to happen and no the reason it's teased out is that they want to figure out if they can put this thing together you know with with the minimal number of Democratic votes in order to pass it but you know the polling says that seventy percent of Americans do not want to export American oil do not want to exploit American oil so that polling number sits over there the American public gets this no this is you know Mark Twain used to say that history doesn't repeat itself but it does tend to rhyme so this might not be 1975 but when people look over at the Middle East right now it rhymes with 1975 in terms of that mess that exists and the role that oil plays in that entire region and that's why the polling is so high in opposition to it and so that's I would say the main obstacle because there's no guarantee that every Republican is going to vote to lift up in these numbers are going to be astoundingly high in states that do not have fossil fuel production you want about it do you have the votes to fight off crude export legislation well they they talked briefly about adding the repeal to the Defense Authorization Act yes about two months ago and they retreated and I don't think they retreated because they wanted to I think they had to make an assessment as to whether or not they had the votes at that particular point in time the proponents of the lifting of the ban so I think they were counting heads as well and again as I'm saying this is not necessarily all Republicans plus a handful of Democrats don't think for a second there aren't going to be some Republicans that going to have to really seriously consider whether or not they want to dramatically increase consumer costs for oil in our country in order to benefit the oil industry from a small number of fossil fuel producing states that's a very difficult vote that uh that said you know you've got some moderate Democrats and you know it's not as you've just been walking us through it's not necessarily all Republican but a lot of Republicans and within the last couple of years you've seen a lot of you know organizations like you know the Brookings Institution at least several of their analysts bipartisan policy center center for New American Security I mean I guess what I'm asking is can your kir allies and this kind of withstand the combined weight of think tank nation plus for some a lot of Republicans plus conservative Democrats I mean it seems like support for this is is growing are you can be able to how convinced are you can hold that line it's a tough fight a tough decision think tank nation versus the nation window the the beltway groupthink our ordinary consumers being told that their gasoline prices are going up their home heating oil prices are going up because the ban on exports has been removed and that experts are saying you know this could lead to profits from 15 to 30 billion dollars a year more for the oil industry which side of the bait do you want to be on okay so I'll take my side I think it's held steady for 40 years and I think there's a strong presumption that that will stay in place in a public debate in a real debate not a clandestine how can we stick this onto some must-pass piece of legislation approach but a straight-out debate on this issue I feel very comfortable that the status quo tante will be retained how much has the Iran negotiation and the survival of the White House deal shaking up the politics of this because certainly you've got the proponents saying look if we're opening the door to much greater Iranian exports given the removal of sanctions we should reciprocate on the US side I mean have does that argument holds sway I'm guessing it doesn't with you but do you think that the Iran deal has kind of somehow shaken up the kind of politics and debate on this well that's the beauty of you know the industry they can argue in eyes away you know they could argue well you know if there is no Iran deal and Iran's not going to put their oil out on the open market and we're going to put even tougher restrictions on the Iranians maybe reducing them down from you know we dropped them from two and a half million barrels a day down to 1 million barrels a day in sanctions and we were going to drop them now let's just say if the deal died down to 1 million barrels a day then of course people would argue as as the nation that led that effort to kill the deal we should sell more oil on the open market so our friends have not harmed but of course that didn't happen the deal did pass and so the Iranian oil is going on the market so then the very same people then turn to go well the oil is going on the market well here's our argument now Iran is now selling more oil on the open market is it fair that we're not able to sell the additional fill that we can produce in the United States on the hill so they can I you it either way the whole point is they just want to go and do it and at the end of the day the pressure to keep the price low is intensifying it's like a tax break in the pockets of consumers all across the country which they're going to need what's going on in China is very uncertain in their stock market their economy as a whole we should keep that economic stimulus inside our economy generally and I think the argument fails that the Iranians are now selling oil and therefore we should do it because remember we are still importing a million and a half barrels a day from the Persian Gulf five million barrels totally two and a half million barrels a day from OPEC it is just absolutely nonsensical for us to accept such an illogical I know you know Senator Schumer of course of work both northeastern senators to what extent have you gotten a read from him on where he stands i have not been it perhaps it's out there in the public record i just missed it but i don't really know where chuck schumer stands on exports have you had conversations with him about it well i don't want to go down individual senators and go down the checklist because there's another five beams right after that you could pass me about but let me just say that I have full confidence in the ability of consumers to elicit an enthusiastic response and the protection of their ability not to have a dramatic increase in the price of gasoline at the pump it's pretty much the only price by the way no one actually knows what they pay for bread or milk anymore they're going in for two percent milk a whole milk or whatever what the price kind of eludes them the only price they know is that price of gasoline is they just staring at it for two minutes while they're holding that pump and so to the extent to which the price of oil is going to go up I think you little elicit significant enthusiastic response from those who have a history of protecting consumers you've had long had a leadership role most certainly in the house but more recently in the Senate you working with a couple different kind of ad hoc caucuses on climate change I know there's the Tuesday meetings sometimes how much of a discussion amongst a the Climate Action Task Force or another sort of climate Hawk senators is there about this issue in particular well again it rises as an issue when it's pending so when we you know potentially confronted with it in the defense bill and of course it a roast when we were confronted with a related issue on the Keystone pipeline in January of this year it comes up of course it's related you can't you can't talk about oil and gas in an isolation and not be talking about all these other huge issues that actually reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere being simultaneously ignored no you just can't do it that way and so that's where we are right now and every time it comes up there's no question I ring the bell and I say we've got to you know engage this right now and and so it is directly related there's no question about it to the totality of a discussion about where the United States is going to be on its emissions of greenhouse gases mind you right now the Republican Party has already made it quite clear they're going to kill if they can the president's power plant rule on the floor of the House and Senate so that's the context in which we debate all of these issues it's there still a substantial percentage of the Republican caucus that does not believe that the the warming of the planet is substantially related to human activity and that's a part of this whole discussion that you know we could just go off on for another half an hour if we wanted to but it's it's part of it you can't deny it do you plan to go to speaking of climate change do you plan to go to the climate negotiations in Paris I plan on going um um William Shakespeare used to say that the the will is infinite but the but the execution is find so my will is to go my ability to execute on this is dependent upon the schedule which mission sets for the activity on the Senate floor of that I have absolutely no knowledge at this point in time but assuming that the time is there I am definitely going to go one of the questions that came in on social media makes the point that you know you cited some of the analysis by barclays senator Heitkamp was citing other studies certainly we've got I mentioned the EIA study how is the voter or the consumer and you know the member of the public who is following this debate given the number of dueling or conflicting analyses and again a substantial number of them showing that this will not force prices up at the pump but as you know as you pointed out there are studies showing in analyses showing the opposite what's how would you recommend how does someone decide how does someone vet this information what would you recommend you have to read them both and then decide which you think is more accurate you know where we're not you know on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire you know there's different phases where you can call the expert you can call your most knowledgeable friend but then you reach a point where you can just ask the audience and the audience was almost invariably right that was the amazing thing about the show almost invariably right so there's a point in time we haven't reached that page of the show yet we ask the audience this is still kind of an insider's discussion but when you present both of these arguments to the public at the right time whenever that is I don't decide that that's going to be decided by the Republican leadership when it's framed we'll have enough information that's in the hands of ordinary voters well they'll be able to make up their mind as to which which side intuitively they think is right and and I think actually the numbers that EIA has on what the impact is for the exploitation of natural gas for consumers is going to which is a fifty percent so we just exploit half of the natural gas that is already you know license but that's pretty much the way an ordinary consumer will be voting and then as voters they'll be reflecting that in any national polling that is taking place and then their elected representatives will have to factor that into how they want to vote especially if we're doing it nearer the middle of this winter I think it's a tough vote you mentioned that when Republican leadership decides to put this out there certainly opponents of it have any number of different channels both lawmakers who are opponents of it but also advocacy organizations who work on this have environmental group have environmental groups have consumer groups has this been a big enough priority for the opponents because certainly all of these organizations are working on a whole litany of topics have there been enough of a push to get your view on this out there into the public well you fight you tend to fight these issues one of the time as they're peaking as their time on the floor of the House the Senate have arrived but the environmental groups opposed the lifting of the ban consumer groups opposed the lifting of the ban the afl-cio led by the steel worker suppose the lifting of the ban and so that'll be on one side and then on the other side you'll have the oil industry and then ultimately that will be the frame and within that will go through the individual sub arguments that I just listed over here but don't for a second think that the public thinks that oils just like any of the product okay if we would still if we were still importing thirty percent of all the corn that we consume in America thirty percent of all the wheat that we consume in America do you think we'd be talking about exporting corn or exporting wheat that wouldn't be happening again it's not like a widget it's not like a screwdriver it's not like something else that's just an ordinary product being exported this is and it's only going to intensify as these stories dominate the top of the news every single night these were refugees fleeing the Middle East which is where the discretionary barrel of oil in the world is still located and don't think for a second that that's not being burned deeply into the soul of voters across this country well senator we're out of time I wanna say thank you very much for for being here and taking and speeding and taking questions Thank You Ben it's my honor to be here with you all thank you