Media billionaire Michael Bloomberg would allow the United States to keep exporting crude oil overseas if he is elected president, his campaign says, unlike his top Democratic rivals who have pledged to ban oil exports immediately to fight climate change.
The stance could help the former New York City mayor gain votes in states like Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana that have benefited from booming US oil exports since the Obama administration lifted a 40-year ban in 2015.
But it risks upsetting the Democratic party’s progressive wing, which is pushing for sweeping measures to quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Texas, one of the biggest US states, is among the 14 voting in the March 3 Super Tuesday Democratic primary process. Its ports handle the lion’s share of America’s roughly 3 million barrels of daily exports, valued at around $65 billion in 2019.
Bloomberg’s campaign told Reuters that while he has an aggressive overall policy https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-climatechange-factbox/factbox-climate-change-plans-of-the-leading-us-democratic-candidates-idUSKBN1ZL2TT to fight climate change, he believes re-imposing the export ban would hurt the economy without providing climate benefits, since lost US shipments would be replaced by oil from producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia.
“Mike will not reinstate the ban,” Bloomberg spokeswoman Daphne Wang told Reuters in an email. “After President Obama lifted the ban, for the first time in decades, the world became less dependent on Middle East and Russian oil and gas. Mike would be reluctant to take actions that could upset that balance.”
Bloomberg’s position makes him an outlier among Democratic presidential hopefuls.
Progressive candidates like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and billionaire Tom Steyer have vowed to re-instate the ban if elected as part of broader plans to transition the US economy away from fossil fuels. Other candidates like former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg have yet to speak publicly on the issue and their campaigns declined repeated requests for comment.