Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma President Brook A. Simmons released the following statement in response to calls to ban U.S. exports of crude oil, refined petroleum products, and liquefied natural gas:

Calls to ban the U.S. export of crude oil, refined products including diesel, or liquefied natural gas are absolutely misguided. Export bans harm U.S. consumers and undermine our nation’s work to make America more energy secure.

Right now, there are men and women in every oil- and natural gas-producing region of the United States working at breakneck pace to provide the energy our nation and the world needs. Bans would do little or nothing to lower fuel prices. Such bans actually harm working Americans trying to fuel a truck or tractor, fill propane and heating oil tanks for the winter, or pay their monthly electricity bills.

Talk of such bans only empowers America’s rivals.

What America needs is permitting reform at both the federal and state levels for the production, transportation, and refining of energy to meet demand. Elected leaders in some regions of the country have simply cut their citizens off from affordable, reliable energy due to poor public policy.

ABOUT THE PETROLEUM ALLIANCE – The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma is the only trade association in Oklahoma that represents every segment of the oil and natural gas industry, representing more than 1,700 individual and member companies engaged in the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors of the state’s defining industry.