Imagine a World Without OPEC
The NOPEC bill would decimate the world’s energy safety net.
The guardians of spare capacity.
Photograph: Omar Marques/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Imagine a world without OPEC. This is what the sponsors of legislation introduced in both houses of Congress seem to want. Versions of the “No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act,” or the NOPEC bill, are working their way through the Senate and the House of Representatives, and are likely to find much more support from the White House than they have in the past — Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both threatened to veto similar legislation.
The bill would allow U.S. antitrust laws to be enforced against OPEC members whom the sponsors say have “used production quotas to keep oil prices artificially high.” This is a popular argument in a country where the right to cheap gasoline might have been written into the constitution alongside the right to bear arms, had that document been drafted a couple of hundred years later than it was. But we need to look a bit further than the gas station forecourt. And when we do, we will not be looking upon the promised land.