” Just lifting the ban on exports without that particular case being the specific exchange permitted doesn’t make sense as it works against energy independence.”
If we are talking about energy independence, there is far greater negative effect to us by the destruction of the coal industry by Obama and the blockage of nuclear power.
Anything connected to export of oil is pittance compared to this.
All the companies that can get themselves a way out of the country that keeps their profits up without their having to deal with the corrupt system within the US will spend their lobbyist and bribe money here to change the system here if that "Free Trade" and "Free Markets" crap doesn't work to let them avoid it.
In the sixties and seventies I remember companies training the people there was a shortage of for the Alaska pipeline. They provided instructors, equipment, and selected the applicants from those who applied. The local technical college provided the space and unemployed applicants to be interviewed. I know Vets who were out of work for one reason or another, trained in such a program, and are welders or fitters to this day. I also know some who after working at a company for a few years got assistance from the company to go to college and get an engineering degree.
Now ? Wave your hands and yell about there being a shortage of the proper skills and you get to import trained people while plenty of smart and skilled people are either already capable of doing the job or could be if the companies approached the problem the way they did then. In addition, they avoid what there is of a free market still working here because they pay the prevailing wage in foreign countries, not the prevailing wage here.
They can't yet start importing Chinese by the thousands who are basically the property of the Chinese head man the way they did in the 1800s, so they have the H1-B and H2-B programs to accomplish the same thing. They don't want the hassles and smacking around they have to deal with if they hire US citizens then don't end up with the right mix of preferred groups, don't insure someone who is working hard to get AIDS, actually fire someone who failed the drug test three times, expects to be paid the prevailing wage, and so on.
As long as the free market/free trade argument is tied to anything that doesn't build the workforce here up to and including training the people they need if the rotten education system can't provide them I really don't want to hear it. It's not an argument for either free trade or free markets, really, it's a demand to be exempt from the horrible mess major corporations themselves have helped create with decades of donations to whatever trendy social change the leftist scum want to implement.
Basically, government torture in the market for thee but not for me.
JMHo