Summers Sees Lower Gasoline Prices If Oil Export Ban Ends

U.S. gasoline prices would fall, not rise, if the government lifts its near-total ban on crude-oil exports, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said.

The reason for the paradoxical result: domestic gasoline prices are tied to movements in Brent crude prices, not the lower West Texas Intermediate values, he told a Jan. 3 session at the American Economic Association annual meeting in Boston. U.S. crude exports would put downward pressure on the former while lifting the latter.