Energy Group: End The Oil Export Ban

A Vice President with the American Energy Alliance says it's time to end a federal ban on exporting American crude oil.

Dan Simmons, the group's Vice President for Policy, says the ban made sense when it was imposed in the 1970s to help protect the country from OPEC oil embargos and gasoline shortages, but he says the situation has changed radically since 2008, with domestic oil production increasing by 90 percent.

Simmons says that while people might assume ending the export ban would raise U.S. gasoline prices, in fact the opposite is true.

He says that's because the ban is going to eventually cause a decrease in U.S. oil production because of the current oil glut making oil production unprofitable in the U.S.

He says if the ban is lifted, on the other hand, increasing American oil production will in turn increase the amount of oil on the global market, keeping gasoline and oil prices relatively low in this country.

A bill to end the export ban recently passed a U.S. Senate committee and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has also come out in favor of the proposal.