Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150922

Captioning performed by vitac the world price of oil is set by the price of brent crude. Brent crude. So thats the international benchmark, if you will. When it goes up, it tends to drive gasoline prices up. When it goes down, it brings prices down. But in our country, the benchmark that we follow because of the Oil Export Ban is west texas intermediate crude, right . And so typically west texas intermediate crude trades at a lower price, say, 5 to 8, sometimes 10 lower than brent crude. So initially you might think, wait a minute, how does that benefit consumers . Well, the way it benefits consumers is that the gasoline price follows brent crude, right . So when theres more supply globally that puts downward pressure on oil