The US House of Representatives on Friday approved a bill to lift a 40-year-old US ban on crude oil exports, despite a White House veto threat.
Supporters argued that an ongoing boom in oil and gas drilling has made the 1970s-era restrictions obsolete.
The bill was approved, 261-159, with 26 Democrats joining Republicans in backing the measure that now heads to the US Senate, where prospects are uncertain.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner said lifting the export ban would lower gas prices, create jobs and boost the economy.
“In my view, America’s energy boom has the potential to reset the economic foundation of our economy and improve our standing around the world,” Boehner said.
Representative Fred Upton, a Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said times have changed and that US policy should embrace a new reality of energy abundance.
“While the Obama administration claims to support an all-of-the-above energy policy, their actions don’t match the rhetoric,” Upton said.
Lifting the export ban also would strengthen national security and weaken economic and political rivals such as Russia, Iran and Venezuela, supporters said. The measure includes a Republican-sponsored amendment blocking crude exports to Iran.
The White House called the bill unnecessary and argued that a decision on whether to end the ban should be made by the commerce secretary.
Instead of lifting the export ban, “Congress should be focusing its efforts on supporting our transition to a low-carbon economy” and ending billions of dollars a year in federal subsidies to oil companies, the White House said in a statement.
Opponents — mostly Democrats — said the bill would mainly benefit big oil companies at the expense of US consumers.
Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky said the bill was not needed as long as the US continues to import millions of barrels of oil every day.
“Every barrel exported by this bill will have to be replaced by a barrel of imported oil,” she said.
Indiana Representative Luke Messer sponsored the amendment blocking crude exports to Iran. Messer, who opposed the recent nuclear agreement hashed out between Iran, the US and five other world powers, said Iran should not benefit from expanded US oil production.
The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s top lobbying group, said the House vote “starts us down the path to a new era of energy security, saving consumers billions and creating jobs across the country.”
The Sierra Club, the nation’s largest environmental organization, said that lifting the ban would lead to a “massive expansion of dangerous oil extraction,” from fracking in North Dakota’s Bakken shale region to drilling in the fragile Arctic Ocean.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day