| | | Gas Exports Called Illegal by Markey
By Jim Snyder June 16, 2014 businessweek.com
Senator Edward Markey is taking a new tack in his fight to block U.S. natural gas exports, now suggesting such sales are illegal.
In a letter to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, the Massachusetts Democrat said a 1975 law barred overseas sales of oil and natural gas, unless such sales were exempt from the ban under rules adopted by the agency...
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Sen. Markey: Regulatory oversight jeopardizes gas export approvals
Posted on June 16, 2014 at 3:01 pm fuelfix.com
...Although Congress passed a law in 1975 directing the government to bar exports of U.S. oil and natural gas, the Commerce Department never got further than crude. And when Commerce formally delegated gas export issues to the then one-year-old Energy Department in 1978, it did so citing a much older 1938 law and the regulations born under it — without any mention of the newer 1975 mandate. “For 39 years, it appears that every single administration has failed to discharge its responsibility to conduct a similar rule making prohibiting the export of natural gas, despite the clear statutory requirement to do so,” Markey said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker...
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Markey's just making work for lawyers. Dredging up a 40 year old, never implemented mandate isn't
going to stop exports. There's been a lot of law and regulation put in place since then. Turning back
the clock to 1975 isn't going to work. Does Markey understand the phase "dead letter in the law" referring to legislation that has not been revoked, but that has become inapplicable or obsolete or is no longer enforced or in this case never enforced or implemented. |
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