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An energy-saving fee is barred

Buddy, can you spare a dime? Apparently not when it is added to the already steep price of gasoline. Ruling on a suit to prevent Jimmy Carter from imposing a 10-c- per gal. conservation fee on gasoline, U.S. District Judge Aubrey Robinson Jr. concluded that the President had exceeded his authority. If the decision is not overturned on appeal, Carter's already battered energy program will suffer further damage. In addition, the loss of $10.3 billion in anticipated revenues from the fee will tip the precariously balanced fiscal 1981 budget into the red.

When Carter announced the impost in March, he based his action on the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, which allows the President to limit imports to protect national security. But five Congressmen and a variety of industry and consumer groups brought suit, charging that since the fee would apply to gasoline refined from domestic as well as foreign oil, it was not covered by the 1962 law. The judge agreed. Only Congress, he said, had the power to raise the tax on domestic oil, and it had clearly indicated its opposition to the land of fee the President ordered. Ruled Robinson: "The imposition of the gasoline conservation fee is contrary to manifest congressional intent."

Congressional resistance to the tax has grown so strong, in fact, that there may be enough votes to override a presidential veto. A House Ways and Means subcommittee last week voted 17 to 4 to reject the fee; and the Senate Finance Committee turned it down 14 to 4. Members of Congress are not happy about running a budget deficit, but they are much more frightened by the prospect of even a mild gasoline tax in an election year.

As usual the Administration did not help its cause by a confused approach to the issue. "The program is rather Rube Goldbergian," concedes an administrative energy adviser. Because of the bewildering intricacy of energy regulations, there is no guarantee that the fee will apply only to gasoline. Oil companies might be able to increase the price of other petroleum products, like home heating oil, thus giving a nervous Congress further cause for election-year jitters. While the Administration claims the fee would save 100,000 bbl. of oil per day, skeptical industry analysts say the reduction would be closer to 60,000 bbl. per day.

The Administration has nonetheless had some success in trimming U.S. oil imports. In April they totaled 6.7 million bbl. per day, compared with 7.8 million bbl. per day for the same month in 1979. But energy independence is still fathomless barrels away. Last week Saudi Arabia, the U.S.'s largest foreign energy supplier, hiked the price of oil 8%, to $28 per bbl., thus narrowing the gap with the OPEC nations that charge about $35 per bbl. Defending the tattered and admittedly rather feeble fee to a congressional subcommittee, Treasury Secretary G. William Miller warned: "Backing away from such a moderate and sensible step would send a very troubling signal to the American people, to the world financial markets and to the governments of OPEC."

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