Phase II for Energy

After President Nixon delivered his energy message last April, critics complained that Administration plans lacked the sense of urgency that the growing energy crisis clearly demands. Last week the President changed that situation. In a message to Congress, he announced what amounts to a Phase II for energy. Between 1975 and 1980, Nixon proposes, $10 billion of federal funds should be spent on research and development aimed at providing the U.S. with ample energy resources for the foreseeable future.

The message was clear: the Administration now puts a top priority on its energy program. Besides the massive new expenditures, Nixon's thrust is to reorganize and focus now fragmented federal energy efforts. In an important move, Nixon announced the appointment of Colorado Governor John A. Love (see box) to head a new energy office "that will be responsible for formulating and coordinating energy policies at the presidential level."

To help accomplish his goals, Nixon announced three related steps:

1) He ordered Dixy Lee Ray, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, to review all existing public and private R. and D. activities so they might be shaped into an integrated national program.

2) He will establish an Energy Research and Development Council, made up of leading private experts, to provide technical advice on the direction and substance of the federal program.

3) He urged the creation of a federal Energy Research and Development Administration. Its main asset would be the AEC's technical expertise and facilities. Beyond that, the agency would collect in one place the federal research efforts now scattered among the AEC (nuclear power), the Interior Department (coal) and the Bureau of Mines (coal, oil and gas), thus streamlining the federal bureaucracy.

In a move that might appease environmentalists, Nixon also endorsed conservation of energy. He instructed the Federal Government to set "an example for all consumers" by cutting its energy use by 7% within the next year.

By reducing air-conditioning levels in federal buildings, for instance, 113 million kilowatt-hours of electricity (equivalent to 270,000 bbl. of oil per year) would be conserved. Similarly, the number of trips by federal officials, who now travel some 250 million miles a year could be cut by 10%, saving about 1.7 million gallons of gasoline.

As for the private sector. Nixon asked for the conservation of energy on a "voluntary basis." If airlines slightly decrease the frequency of flights--while raising the average jetliner load from the present 52% to 60%--they will save about 1.3 billion gallons a year. Citizens can help too. They should drive more slowly on highways to cut gas consumption, and they should set thermostats on their air conditioners to provide room temperatures about four degrees warmer than usual. That would require from 15% to 20% less electricity. Summed up Nixon: "I believe that the American people must develop an energy-conservation ethic."

Nixon repeated a 1971 request that Congress put all agencies that make energy decisions into a broad-based new Cabinet-level Department of Energy and Natural Resources. While the idea makes eminent sense, there is a real question whether Congress, which has ignored the suggestion to date, will show any new enthusiasm for tampering with a working bureaucracy.

Whatever the ultimate results of the massive new program, Nixon's announcement may well have a beneficial short-range effect. For it serves to put the oil-producing nations on notice that the U.S. is determined to meet its energy requirements with or without them --and thus might influence them to be more flexible in their negotiations with the world's No. 1 oil consumer.

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