By MICHAEL BARBAR
2014 New York Times News Service
MEXICO CITY — Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey offered a prescription for what he called a “North American energy renaissance” in an expansive speech here, calling for an end to Washington’s 40-year ban on crude oil exports, faster approval of natural gas pipelines between the United States and Mexico and construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
On the opening day of Christie’s trip to Mexico, a rare journey abroad as he weighs a run for presidency, he abandoned his trademark swagger for a data-filled, policy-rich and humility-heavy approach.
He quoted the writer Bill Bryson and the energy expert Daniel Yergin. He offered lavish praise for the market-oriented reforms of the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto. And he took pains to present himself, over and over, as an eager student prepared to absorb the lessons of his Mexican counterparts.
“I want to listen,” Christie said at one point. “I have much to learn,” he declared at another. (In one speech, Christie used the word “listen” four times.)
In calling for an end to the prohibition against most crude oil exports, Christie is siding squarely with the energy industry, which views the rule as an outdated act of economic protectionism that is hampering the U.S. economy and increasing global fuel prices.
His remarks came just a day after the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, Ben van Beurden, issued a similar appeal, telling a conference in New York that easing the restrictions would ensure the future of North American energy production and “make the global energy system much more stable.”
The U.S. prohibited most crude exports to conserve domestic oil reserves after the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s. But during the past few decades, U.S. production of oil and natural gas has risen drastically, transforming the United States into a world leader that can afford to send its domestic energy overseas, experts say.
That, Christie said, “has changed the strategic equation, making our continent less vulnerable to imports from the Middle East or unstable sources elsewhere.”
Although he was careful not to mention President Barack Obama by name, Christie offered a forceful critique of the president’s delay in approving the Keystone XL pipeline, asserting that it had hurt U.S.-Canadian relations, squandered a chance to lower energy prices and produced a “chilling effect” on similar investments across North America.
“It should have been done a long time ago. It should be done today,” Christie said.
Christie traveled here on Wednesday with a coterie of aides and a surprise guest: his oldest son, Andrew, who forfeited his final week of summer vacation to accompany his father to Mexico. The younger Christie, a junior at Princeton who is said to have a keen interest in public policy, joined his father for lunch with the U.S. ambassador to Mexico and the Mexican ambassador to the U.S. He lugged a thick white briefing binder as he shuttled from meeting to meeting.
Latin America has emerged as political magnet for the likely field of 2016 presidential contenders. (Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., just returned from Guatemala.) But Christie was supposed to have Mexico all to himself this week. On Wednesday afternoon, he learned that monopoly would end: Word arrived that Hillary Rodham Clinton would fly to Mexico City on Friday, putting the two in the same city.
Might there be a bipartisan summit in the Latin American metropolis, a show of domestic political goodwill on foreign soil?
No, aides to Christie said. There would not.
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