After 40-year ban, US starts exporting crude oil

Just weeks after Congress lifted a 40-year ban on exporting oil, the first shipments of crude oil have left U.S. ports for Europe.

"The fact that producers have free access to the global market will make it easier for U.S. supply to respond to disruptions around the world," said Jason Borduff, a former energy adviser to President Barack Obama who is currently a professor at Columbia University.

The U.S. banned exports in 1975, two years after an OPEC oil embargo that banned oil sales to the U.S. had sent gas prices skyrocketing.

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