The US Congress voted on Friday to repeal the 40-year-old ban on exporting US crude oil in an energy policy shift sought by Republicans as part of a bipartisan deal that also provided unprecedented tax incentives for wind and solar power. The Senate, on a 65-33 vote, approved lifting the ban and providing five-year extensions of tax breaks to boost renewable energy development as part of a $1.8 trillion government spending and tax relief bill that President Barack Obama quickly signed into law.
The House of Representatives passed legislation containing the energy provisions earlier in the day by a 316-113 tally. The energy deal was hammered out in secret talks among congressional leaders over two weeks. Senators Lisa Murkowski, a Alaska Republican, and Democrats Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico had worked for more than a year to get the deal. Democrats who backed the deal asserted that its provisions encouraging renewable energy were important for combating global climate change. "This is the biggest deal for addressing climate change that we are going to see," Heinrich said in an interview.