With US crude output growing rapidly and the country emerging as the world’s top producer, there seems growing emphasis in Washington on controlling the newly found resource and using it as a foreign policy tool.
At the EIA’s 2014 Energy Conference last week, challenges haunting the policymakers and the energy markets were discussed and argued in detail.
Artificial market barriers are preventing the US from using energy as a tool for international diplomacy, US Rep. Fred Upton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said.
“It’s a new era of energy abundance, and we need to usher in a new era for energy policy.”
He emphasised that those in the world with energy have the power to influence global affairs. We have (finally) an opportunity, to use energy as a diplomatic tool and ensure US allies gain access to US oil and gas reserves rather than being “held hostage” to global instability, he said.
