The push to ease the ban on U.S. crude oil exports is a well-funded effort akin to a presidential campaign in terms of its political machinery, a report finds. Republican leaders in the U.S. House and Senate have moved various pieces of legislation meant to end the ban placed on U.S. crude oil exports after Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in the 1970s blocked their exports to the United States in response to Washington’s support for Israel. A report published in The New York Times finds the effort is a well-funded initiative supported in part by major Washington think thanks, like the American Enterprise Institute. The Brookings Institution , the report finds, was backed with more than […]