The American Petroleum Institute (API) recently took a break from hosting anti-cap-and-trade rallies for oil company employees, and used its spare time to put out a study claiming the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) would be unfair to American oil refineries. Unfortunately their study uses some dubious assumptions \u2013 and makes some even more questionable claims.<\/p>\n
API\u2019s study (carried out by consulting firm Ensys Energy) outlines two major complaints.<\/p>\n
Before we even address those complaints, there\u2019s one thing I have to point out — API is relying on bad modeling and cherry-picked results to create its case.<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s ignore the study results for a minute, and just take a look at API\u2019s two complaints.<\/p>\n
First, API seems to think refineries are getting picked on because they aren\u2019t getting as many free allowances<\/strong> as the electricity sector. But — they ignore the reasons why the two are not comparable.<\/p>\n Of course, if the oil refiners were willing to accept the same regulations as utilities, and guarantee that their emissions allowances would be used to lower the price of a gallon of gasoline, that\u2019s an idea worth discussing. API\u2019s study doesn\u2019t put that offer on the table, though.<\/p>\n Second, API says that America could become dangerously dependent on foreign refineries. (API President Jack Gerard says, “Climate legislation should not come at the expense of U.S. economic and energy security.”)<\/p>\n But \u2013 U.S. refineries have cornered 90 percent of the market for domestic gasoline. Homegrown refineries dominate the market because there are, inherently, strong cost advantages for domestic production, and little incentive to send business overseas<\/strong>.<\/p>\n EDF did our own analysis of the impact of climate legislation on oil refineries.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what we found:<\/p>\n Given all this, the bill should not affect the competitiveness of American refineries<\/strong>.<\/p>\n A larger problem might be the unfortunate effect of API\u2019s study on the average American consumer. Outside the industry, a lot of people don\u2019t draw a distinction between \u201coil\u201d and \u201cgasoline.\u201d A quick read of news articles about the study could imply that ACES will increase America\u2019s dependence on foreign oil \u2013 when one of the most valuable aspects of the bill is that it will do just the opposite. Under ACES, the EIA predicts that the U.S. would reduce its consumption of oil by 344 million barrels in the year 2030 alone. That\u2019s a vital benefit to our national security as well as our environment.<\/p>\n A whopping amount of our own oil and the imported oil would still be refined into gasoline here, in spite of API\u2019s fears. After all, even their own biased study predicts increasing U.S. refinery activity.\u00a0 All in all, clean energy legislation is still good for all Americans \u2013 including oil refineries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The American Petroleum Institute (API) recently took a break from hosting anti-cap-and-trade rallies for oil company employees, and used its spare time to put out a study claiming the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) would be unfair to American oil refineries. Unfortunately their study uses some dubious assumptions \u2013 and makes some even …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,43,397],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change-legislation","category-economics","category-truth-squad"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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