Energy Policy and Conservation Act

Right.

Something called the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, Section 103, gave the president authority to do exactly that.

But that was repealed in 2015, I believe in a budget bill, I think it was.

And so it seems to me that since Congress is a non-starter, because, of course, the House is out of session until after the midterms, the most...

And yet we used to do this exactly.

From 1975 to 2015, the United States banned most crude oil exports under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act.

40 years, they kept domestic crude domestic.

In the 1970s, it embargoed soybean and wheat exports to hold down food prices.

I'll drop the link in the show notes so you can hear Jimmy testify in front of the committee.

What was this hearing? What was the premise of the hearing? And then we can get into your testimony, because one of the things I don't think people understand is something, the acronym is pronounced EPCA, EPCA.

EPCA, but let's talk about what was the committee and then we'll get into what your specific comments were.

Yeah, so I think the point of the hearing, you know, we've been hearing a lot about affordability lately, right? So from, you know, especially some politicians in bluer states that oppose the Trump administration, they've liked to talk about affordability lately as an election talking point.

But this ignores what those same politicians and their allies are doing at the state and local level.

You can't drive up the cost of every single product in the United States and then claim that you're the champion of affordability.

I want to get to something, Jimmy.

What is EPCA? And this is important because...

It says operating anywhere near bottom efficiency disables the reserves due to a hard legal stop and the loss of emergency flow rates.

says under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, federal law places a strict statutory stop at 252.4 million barrels.

Dropping below this number prohibits the president from ordering routine limited drawdowns.

Crossing the limit transforms the reserve from a flexible economic buffer into a restricted emergency asset requiring a severe national security declaration.

70s were a big era for energy policy, as you know.

And it was passed as part of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act in direct response to the Arab oil embargo that happened in 73, 74.

And so it basically, Congress pushed to create a petroleum reserve that would allow us to have a stockpile as an emergency buffer if we had future shocks of some I think it's important to understand as well that people typically think about the oil in caverns like that's the asset, and they think about it in the context of releases.

We have released it a number of times over the past couple of years and going back decades.