EEIA President Toby Mack joined Reps. Joe Barton (R-TX) (left), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and four more co-sponsoring Members of Congress April 30, 2015 at a U.S. Capitol press conference to announce widening bi-partisan House support for H.R. 702 to repeal the U.S. crude oil export ban. Following is Mack's statement to the press:
EEIA is the Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance. We represent stakeholders in the oil and gas supply chain - tens of thousands of mostly local and regional main street American businesses and over 600,000 workers dedicated to oil & gas alone.
- They are contractors, distributors, manufacturers, transportation and service companies, and their workers
- They provide construction, capital equipment, materials, logistics, supplies and services
- They operate and employ American workers in all 50 states
Our alliance members include supply chain companies, labor unions and trade associations. Our union members include the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA), and the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), because there are so many good union jobs many in construction for workers supporting energy operations throughout the country.
Many jobs have been lost, and many more are at risk today, because of the obsolete ban on crude oil exports. In the energy supply chain, there are three workers supporting energy for every one job at the production level. This has been documented by a recently completed IHS study showing the American jobs that would be created by lifting the ban on US crude exports.
Because of the ban, our producers lack access to global markets, and so our record crude oil production is trapped inside the US and has swamped our refining capacity. So producers are cutting back, and this is costing these supply chain workers their jobs in large and growing numbers.
Most of the losses are invisible smaller companies cutting 5, 10, 25 jobs at a time. It doesnt make the news, but it adds up to tens of thousands of lost jobs, and suffering for families and communities throughout the United States.
Lifting the ban will give our producers access to global markets, just like our refiners have, and just like every other producing country in the world has. It would unleash substantial new production in the US, stem the tide of job loss, and start job creation again.
And it would benefit consumers a host of recent studies show that US crude oil exports would actually put downward pressure on American gasoline and diesel prices.
The time to act is now before foreign producers, like Russia and Iran, lock up the worlds crude customers, and make money to spend on threatening Americas friends and allies. Let our producers provide crude oil to them instead.
In so doing we will save and create hundreds of thousands of jobs with supply chain companies in communities throughout the United States.
EEIA President Toby Mack joined Reps. Joe Barton (R-TX) (left), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and four more co-sponsoring Members of Congress April 30, 2015 at a U.S. Capitol press conference to announce widening bi-partisan House support for H.R. 702 to repeal the U.S. crude oil export ban. Following is Mack's statement to the press: 
