Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy made a valuable contribution to the oil-exports debate last week when it teamed up with energy and economic consultancy The Rhodium Group to publish a new report, Navigating the U.S. Oil Export Debate.

The report is especially noteworthy because it is authored by veteran D.C. policymakers Jason Bordoff and Trevor Houser.

Bordoff and Houser write that we have reached the end of an era: “The original rationale for crude export restrictions no longer applies.”

Quite simply, 2015 is a very different time compared to when the crude exports ban was formalized in 1975.

Bordoff and Houser note that “even before the Arab oil embargo caused an oil scarcity panic, the phrase ‘energy crisis’ had already emerged as part of the American political vocabulary along with growing concern that a major supply problem loomed.”

But the fears of scarcity that prevailed during that period have been pushed off the stage, replaced with an acknowledgement of energy abundance brought on by hydraulic fracturing in America’s shale regions.

The report also notes that the ban was put in place, in part, to support domestic price controls, ostensibly as a means to curb inflation. “But while price controls have long since fallen away,” they write, “crude export restrictions remain.”

Similar to other studies that have looked at crude export possibilities – from  the Brookings Institution, Manhattan Institute, Institute for Policy Innovation, Aspen Institute, IHS Resources for the Future, and others – Bordoff and Houser conclude the overall impact to the American economy would be positive.

And like many of these studies, they conclude that a principal effect of scrapping the current ban would be to increase domestic crude oil production and to lower gasoline prices for consumers.

Lifting the export ban would benefit America’s economic and national security, as well. The study suggests that the increased production spurred by a liberalized export policy would strengthen the United States, making the country more resilient in the face of supply disruptions around the world.

On top of that it would give the U.S. greater diplomatic leverage on the global stage.

Finally, I’ll note one last set of advantages Bordoff and Houser cite:

Lifting crude export restrictions is consistent with past and present U.S. trade policy priorities, would enhance U.S. credibility in current and future trade negotiations, and avoid creating a precedent that could harm U.S. trade policy objectives down the road.

That point hits the mark.

We have known for centuries that barriers to free trade and open investment hamper economic growth and opportunity. The same applies equally to energy as to any other sector.

The Obama administration’s broad trade agenda – including promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – should be applauded. But to be consistent in its advocacy of free trade, President Obama should bring his presidential voice and leadership to the cause of ending the ban on energy exports as well.