Petroleum economist Karr Ingham of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers is sounding the alarm on a letter sent to President Joe Biden by a group of 11 Senate Democrats urging him to release emergency oil reserves or ban oil exports to combat inflation.
''In light of these pressing concerns, we ask that you consider all tools available at your disposal to lower U.S. gasoline prices. This includes a release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and a ban on crude oil exports,'' the lawmakers wrote.
Ingham told Fox News Digital: ''That proposal does absolutely nothing to alleviate higher prices or to make prices lower than in any sort of relative sense.
''The economics of that are pretty clear. And if the suggestion on the part of the administration is that in implementing a ban on U.S. crude oil exports makes U.S. domestic crude oil prices lower and therefore, for example, U.S. gasoline prices lower, that's pure folly, that is not the effect,'' Ingham told the network. ''Implementing a crude oil export ban does absolutely nothing ... and it probably makes prices higher, not lower.''
Ingham believes the solution is the exact opposite of what the letter proposes. He wants the government to allow producers to meet the demand by increasing exports and cutting regulations.
''The key to this is allowing U.S. oil and gas producers to do what they do best to simply get out of their way. Let them go to work,'' Ingham said. ''Remove as much uncertainty as can be removed from the legislative, regulatory, and economic environment and let them get back to the business of growing U.S. domestic crude oil production energy production as rapidly as they can.''
Ryan Sitton, the founder and CEO of refinery maintenance company Pinnacle, agreed with Ingham's analysis of the letter.
''What it would do is it would tank the price of U.S. crude oil and therefore kill the U.S. oil business,'' Sitton told Fox.
The cost of gasoline rose 6.1% in October, according to the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index Summary released Wednesday.
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