They may have floated it… but it won’t fly. One US industries COVID-19 relief at the Extreme expense of another US industry will be a non starter. Dead on arrival in DC… this is not the first time this has been asked for… and this time based on low perhaps short term Commodity price instability…
Actually this would be a great time to put a 25 to 50 % tariff on imported oil and LNG. Only the crude traders like the arbitrage of send US Crude and LNG out and importing Saudi and Urals.
Benefits -
Defense (protect US domestic production)
Defense - supports US Merchant Marine
Environment - how many hundred of thousands of barrels are consumed sending US oil overseas 8000 miles and importing the same amount from 8000 miles away.
Saudi’s saying to expect April production volumes to continue into May, and are very comfortable they can meet their dividend and other obligations at $30/bbl oil for over a year. I see no inherent obligation to protect US producers. Allow markets to work. If the Saudi’s want to send $30/bbl oil here, and I know the US Refineries were built for and love to run Saudi crude. If $30 crude does not support US production, it doesn’t support it. If they want to dump for market share - let them, that only works if you
can maintain the market share as you raise prices, and they can’t. The US is the fly wheel in the system. At low prices, slow down, if prices rise - ramp up. It is the advantage of fracking that there is a large variable cost component to the bbl, it can ramp up and down with relative ease.