U.S. Oil Producers Strike Back With Call for Import Quota Plan

Such wars, sponsors assert, are against oil communities, working families, and producers, not only in Texas and the Southwest but across the entire U.S. “The United States should no longer allow Saudi Arabia and the Middle East to manipulate our economy by crippling our ability to produce and use our own natural resources. We have been forced to comply with the consequences of decisions made by a country whose intent was to take over a market share that was ours and make it theirs. The result was oil prices plummeting to $26 a barrel.”

Quota backers, among them the Panhandle Producers and Royalty Owners Association, maintain the bust in oil prices has left families and companies both large and small with bankruptcy and hundreds of thousands out of work. “Since Thanksgiving of 2014, Saudi Arabia has increased its production to lower prices to shut-in unconventional oil in all areas of the U.S., but specifically in Texas, Oklahoma, and Appalachia where stripper or marginal wells are more prevalent. It is a price war which has suspended the prospect of American energy self-sufficiency.”

The proposed Panhandle Import Reduction Initiative seeks to revive the 1959 quota system enacted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who acted to sustain a healthy oil industry as a matter of national security. President Eisenhower’s quotas limited heavy, sour oil to 10% to 12% of yearly American oil demand—enough to cover Canada’s current exports to the U.S. Further, imports from Canada and Mexico would be exempt under the
plan. Supporters note that the restrictions worked for 14 years to keep domestic oil from going out of business because of foreign imports.

Import quotas would be imposed within the first 60 days of the new president’s term next year. “Light, tight oil from shale is an American technology triumph and the pathway to abundance and security against foreign oil supply cut-off threats,” sponsors comment. “Southwest and Dakota oil will be unbound. North American oil will avoid the risk of dependence on the world ocean as the transportation for imports. Oil from shale has so far supported national income savings in the balance of payments of over $500 billion in the last five years.” They add that imported oil is rapidly increasing and could return the U.S. to the same dependency that began in the late 1970s and lasted until 2010.