The top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee urged President Barack Obama to end a 39-year ban on exports of U.S. crude oil, joining what is shaping up as a major election-year debate over energy policy. “We need to act before the crude oil export ban causes problems in the U.S. oil production, which will raise prices and therefore hurt American jobs,” Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska , top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said today in remarks at the Brookings Institution in Washington . Most exports of U.S. crude oil are prohibited under a 1975 law meant to counter surging gasoline prices after an Arab oil embargo. Advances in drilling techniques have led to increased production, and the Paris-based International Energy Agency projects that the U.S. will surpass Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer by 2015. Related: […]