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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Oil export ban in play in final-stage talks on budget deal

Erica Werner

WASHINGTON – Republican demands to end the ban on exporting crude oil emerged as a final negotiating point Monday as White House and congressional negotiators moved toward completing a year-end spending bill and a tax-cutting package.

In a Monday evening conference call among House Republicans, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said bargainers were close to agreements on the spending and tax measures that he expected to publicly release Tuesday, which would set up votes later in the week. He said the bills would contain victories for both parties but provided few details, according to an official who described the conversation.

In return for lifting the four-decade-old oil export ban, Democrats were seeking various environmental concessions, including extending tax credits for solar and wind energy production for five years, and reviving an environmental conservation fund. Democrats also were trying to block GOP efforts to roll back Obama administration environmental regulations, with Democratic lawmakers who traveled to the Paris climate talks returning energized to fight.

“It’s like they all went to an international pep rally and got all this emotional wind at their back,” GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said.

Government funding runs out Wednesday at midnight, but Congress may need to pass another short-term extension of a day or two to complete work on the $1.14 trillion government-wide spending bill. Negotiations have dragged on as the legislation has become an increasingly complex grab-bag for priorities and trade-offs large and small.

It’s also intertwined with another massive bill extending dozens of tax credits benefiting interest groups across the political spectrum, sparking intense lobbying on numerous fronts.

Congressional passage would mean lawmakers would then head home for the holidays, having done their necessary work in typically messy and last-minute fashion.

The ban on exporting crude oil was instituted during energy shortages of the 1970s but Republicans, and some Democrats, say it’s long outlived any usefulness. They note a boom in domestic energy production. Environmental groups and most Democrats counter that the main beneficiaries would be big oil companies.

Cramer and Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., whose state has experienced an oil boom, said they were hopeful the provision lifting the ban on crude would survive last-stage talks.

At the White House Monday press secretary Josh Earnest refused to weigh in on inclusion of the provision. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the measure as stand-alone legislation but seems likely to accept if it’s made part of the must-pass spending bill.