Clinton's Plan to Reduce US Oil Consumption Likely Won't Work

by Tom DiChristopher (CNBC) ... Clinton says she would extend standards for vehicle fuel efficiency, methane emissions, building codes and appliance standards that President Barack Obama implemented or supported, according to a campaign spokesperson. Clinton supports Obama initiatives like the Clean Power Plan and new Environmental Protection Agency regulations on oil and gas drilling, which have drawn the ire of the energy industry and legal challenges. She also backs raising the royalty rates for drilling on federal land and cutting tax breaks for oil and gas firms, and she opposes offshore fossil fuel development in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.

That said, while the Obama administration has ratcheted up regulations and limited drilling on federal land, it also presided over a 75 percent increase in U.S. oil output in its first seven years. The boom continued until a sharp oil price downturn forced American producers to cut back output.

At present, it would be difficult to see U.S. oil consumption falling that rapidly, and the campaign promise should be taken more as a sign of Clinton's dedication to emissions than as an actually achievable target, said Antoine Halff, former chief oil analyst at the International Energy Agency.

"As an ambition, it's legitimate. As a projection, it's aspirational," he told CNBC. "It's not necessarily to be taken at face value as a forecast."

The Clinton campaign has not detailed a plan for how it would achieve its goal. It has proposed offering grants to phase out home heating fuel, supporting electric vehicle infrastructure and more quickly deploying natural gas-fueled trucks, buses, trains and ships.

Halff is now working with researchers at Columbia's Center on Global Energy Policy to build models that can forecast how electric vehicles, ride-sharing and a host of other factors could affect energy markets in the future.

Motor gasoline accounted for nearly half of America's total petroleum product consumption of 19.4 million barrels a day last year, so fuel efficiency and electric vehicle adoption would have to play a significant role in driving down oil demand on a large scale.

Clinton could opt to take an inflexible stance on fuel standards and even lobby for a gasoline tax, but she would have limited ability as president to ramp up adoption of electric vehicles, in Saundry's (Peter Saundry, chief scientist at the National Council for Science and the Environment) view. Their success depends on the continued decline in the cost of vehicle batteries as technology improves, he explained.

Clinton took a harder stance on fracking while locked in a tough primary with Sen. Bernie Sanders, who backs a national ban on the drilling method, but a close examination of her statements shows she has left herself considerable leeway to allow fracking to operate largely as it does already. READ MORE