The National Energy Plan: Hitless After the First Inning

In April, President Carter announced an ambitious reorientation of national energy policy toward conservation and renewable resources.¹ The National Energy Plan² combines a complicated series of price incentives and disincentives, mandatory efficiency standards, excise taxes, and production increases in order to achieve an American society that is more energy efficient and less dependent on foreign energy supplies. As is the case with most such integrated, complicated packages, the projected result — a reduction in the nation's annual energy growth rate to less than two percent — is overly optimistic in light of time and political realities. The Plan was barely a few weeks old when it was attacked by some parts of industry as not providing sufficient incentives to spur production of new domestic energy supplies, by Republicans as foregoing reliance on the free market to obtain the same results,³ by the auto industry as crippling new car production, and by some enfironmentalists, notably Barry Commoner, as containing the hidden plan for resuscitation of the plutonium breeder reactor. Despite these carpings, the Plan has already succeeded in re-emphasizing the continuing severity of the United States' energy problem and in giving the public and industry fair warning that this is merely the first pitch in a game that the President is willing to take into extra innings.

This Comment will outline the major provisions of the Plan in order to give a background for evaluating future congressional work on H.R. 6831, the legislation that seeks to implement the National Energy Plan. Also, brief descriptions of recent congressional actions on the Plan will be given. Notwithstanding an earlier sense of urgency, final legislation is expected to pass Congress no sooner than late August.

General Strategy

The three basic objectives of the Plan are to reduce the quantity of imported oil, to decrease the growth rate in domestic energy usage, and to shift to consumption of renewable energy sources. Three strategies are employed to implement these goals: (1) reduce energy demand by a series of taxes; (2) shift industrial and electric utility energy use to coal and away from oil and natural gas; and (3) slowly introduce higher prices for energy supplies. The quest is for price certainty, energy efficiency, and as small as possible an economic impact on consumers and industry. These broad criteria contain a substantial call for altering the energy gluttony that infects American lifestyles.

To put these criteria in some perspective, alternative strategies to achieve the same result do exist. For instance, an ambitious conservation program, with more complete or less gradual reliance on prices and more direct controls, represents a "quick fix" to reduce demand. Another option is higher prices through market mechanisms, which could reduce demand and, some say, stimulate domestic production of oil and natural gas and thus alleviate the supply shortage. Experts, however, are divided on whether raising prices across the board would yield new domestic supplies.⁴ Finally, the nation could stay hooked on its technological fix, which brought us the Manhattan Project and the Apollo moon landings and invest heavily in exotic energy technologies, such as synthetic petroleum and nuclear fusion, to get us out of our supply problems. These new technologies, however, would not produce benefits until 1990 at the earliest and thus fail to remedy short- to medium-term supply problems.

Real Sacrifices?

The President's address to the nation on April 18 called for "sacrifices" to avert a national energy catastrophe.⁵ Barry Commoner, after analyzing the few numbers that appear in the National Energy Plan, claims that the sacrificial lamb will be the consumer and that industry will obtain the lion's share of any increase in energy supply by 1985.⁶ Commoner points out that between now and 1985 the Plan's figures show that 16 percent of additional demand will be met by conservation while 84 percent will be achieved by increasing supply. In addition, the Plan's figures⁷ show that total energy demand will be reduced by a mere four percent if the Plan is totally implemented. Of the total energy budget, with the Plan in effect, the industrial sector will be allotted 74 percent of energy added by 1985, while the residential and commercial sector will have 15 percent of the energy added and transportation will grow by only 11 percent. The Plan projects these figures in the face of trends that show that industrial energy demand has steadily decreased over the last ten years while residential and commercial demands have correspondingly risen. In sum, Commoner asserts that consumers will have to sacrifice much more than the industrial sector in order to achieve even the modest demand reductions proposed in the Plan. The Congressional Budget Office suggests that these "sacrifices" will merely be reductions in the rate of the rise in citizens' standard of living.⁸ Thus, apart from possible direct impacts on the size and efficiency of new cars, the overall tenor of the Plan, despite the President's exhortations, indicates that the size of lifestyle changes will not be dramatic.

[7 ELR 10120]

As a preliminary step in congressional consideration, various sections of the plan have been allocated among several House and Senate committees. In the Senate, two bills, S. 1472 concerning the tax aspects of the Plan and S. 1469 dealing with non-tax aspects, have been referred respectively to the new Energy Committee, chaired by Sen. Jackson (D-Wash.), and the Finance Committee. On the House side, the entire H.R. 6831 has been split up into five parts. The Ways and Means Committee will consider the tax aspects of the bill.⁹ The Commerce Committee will deal with proposals for natural gas pricing, utility rate reform, coal conversion, appliance efficiency standards, and conservation in residential, school, and hospital buildings. The Banking Committee has jurisdiction over the financing aspects of the program that would require electric utilities to install insulation in customers' homes. The Public Works Committee will consider the proposal to install solar heating and cooling in federal buildings, while the Government Operations Committee will evaluate federal employee vanpooling. In a unique move, the House also established an Ad Hoc Committee on Energy, chaired by Rep. Ashley (D-Ohio), which will initially review energy supply and demand forecasts¹⁰ but will later assume jurisdiction over the disparate products of the five standing committees in order to present a unified bill for final House consideration. Finally, the Joint %economic Committee will review the economic impact of the Plan.¹¹

Automobile and Gasoline Taxes

In recognition of the enormous energy used — and wasted — by the American automobile, the Plan proposes to encourage the manufacture and purchase of fuel-efficient cars through a system of taxes and rebates and to discourage driving by raising gasoline prices at the pump through taxes with the anticipated result of reducing gasoline consumption by ten percent by 1985. The rebate system would refund monies collected through the auto excise taxes to consumers who bought fuel efficient cars. In essence, the "gas-guzzler" excise taxes and rebates, which would take effect for the 1978 model year, would be an extension of the provisions of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975,¹² which currently mandates a gradual increase in fleet mileage per gallon for new cars to 27.5 bn 1985. The Plan also would impose a standby gasoline tax of five cents per gallon every year that actual gasoline consumption exceeds an annual predetermined level. Finally, the Plan would allow the price of newly-discovered domestic oil (currently $11.28 per barrel) to reach the world oil price (currently $13.50 per barrel) by 1980 as a further price incentive to reduce gasoline consumption.

These measures, which would have the most immediate, visible impact on the public, met with the stiffest initial congressional reaction to any part of the Plan. Critics suggested that the gradual standby tax would not reduce gasoline consumption, in view of the last few years' experience after the Arab oil embargo in which gasoline use increased in the face of annual price increases. Furthermore, the tax was seen as discriminating against rural and Western drivers who have few alternatives to transportation by automobile. On the other hand, the Congressional Budget Office, although estimating that the auto and gas tax plans would reduce auto gas consumption by only five instead of ten percent, indicated these potential savings to be significant: 305,000 barrels per day in 1985 and 650,000 barrels per day by 1990.¹³

Unfortunately for the President, the Ways and Means Committee on June 9 eliminated the standby gas tax and the high-mileage auto rebate and delayed the gas-guzzler tax implementation until the 1979 model year. One fear expressed was that rebates for fuel-efficient cars would subsidize foreign compacts at the expense of American cars. Nevertheless, a committee member said that he would propose a program to allocate gas-guzzler taxes for mass transit, energy research and development, and block grants to states,¹⁴ a proposal remarkably similar to an earlier one suggested offhandedly by Transportation Secretary Brock Adams and immediately disavowed by the Administration as not conforming to the executive branch proposal.¹⁵

Oil and Natural Gas Pricing and Supply

Oil and natural gas pricing and supply questions elicit the most varied data, the highest degree of uncertainty, and the least likelihood of arriving at a consensus. For instance, President Carter relied on a Central Intelligence Agency study released on April 15 that forecast a worldwide oil shortage by 1985 because Saudi Arabian production could not possible match world demand.¹⁶ On the other hand, a study by an international group called the Workshop on Alternative Energy Strategies forecasts a similar emergency as early as 1981.¹⁷

Recognizing that this supply-demand gap will occur sometime soon, one of the tenets of President Carter's proposal is to switch the American economy from oil-dependence to first coal and ultimately renewable resource dependence. The Plan would accomplish this switch by allowing the price of newly-discovered United States oil to rise to world market prices over three years, subjecting all domestic oil to an equalization tax consisting [7 ELR 10121] of the difference between domestic and world prices, and bringing intrastate natural gas under federal regulation to force industry to change over to using coal instead of natural gas for industrial processes. These proposals reflect the fact that low petroleum prices have encouraged high consumption.

Thus, the oil and gas pricing parts of the Plan are intimately tied to the coal conversion sections. Indeed, the natural gas proposal seeks not to save energy but only to reallocate gas to residential use. The tax structures to be imposed on crude oil are designed to prevent windfall profits for oil companies that bear no increased production costs for current oil stocks. Nevertheless, the pricing proposals go only part way because they tie domestic prices to the world price, which is not necessarily a valid indication of the true replacement cost of petroleum. As with the auto and gasoline tax proposals, though, the natural gas regulatory provision encountered rough sledding in a House Commerce subcommittee, which voted on June 9 to deregulate all new gas,¹⁸ a move that the administration opposed and, it appears, a course that may not stimulate new production any more than would the Plan's provision to place a ceiling of $1.75 per thousand cubic feet on all gas.¹⁹

Coal and Conversion

One of the mainstays of the Energy Plan is the expanded use of coal by industry, both in new plants and through conversion of facilities that now burn oil and natural gas. Compared to the intricacies of the auto and petroleum tax-rebate schemes, the Plan devotes scant attention to coal policy, contenting itself with the bald assertion that production by 1985 must increase by 565 million tons above its current 660-million-ton level.²⁰ This policy is based on the observation that coal represents 90 percent of United States energy reserves but only 18 percent of its current production. This policy may be realistic, as current coal reserves equal 437 billion tons,²¹ enough to last over 300 years at the 1985 production rates.

The conversion is to occur through another system of business tax incentives and taxes on facilities using oil and natural gas. In essence, the Administration is admitting that the coal conversion program under the Energy Supply and Environmental Coordination Act of 1974 (ESECA)²² has failed because of "ineffective management," conceding that no plants have been converted in the three years of the program's existence.²³ ESECA authorizes the Federal Energy Administration (FEA) to require conversion to coal when it is economically feasible, environmentally acceptable and when coal is available. The National Energy Plan would add the tax incentive to spur conversion but would shift the burden of locating coal onto industry, although FEA would still have the burden of proving economic feasibility.

A host of issues raised by the coal conversion proposal remains untouched by the Plan. On the supply question, it is highly unlikely that the coal industry can increase output by an average of 60 million tons per year, considering that 1976 was a record year.²⁴ Thus, every new year must set another coal production record, assuming that logistical problems of transportation, storage, manpower, and facility construction planning can be concurrently solved. More seriously, the Plan virtually ignores the environmental aspects of coal production and conversion apart from general recitations of protecting environmental quality. The expected strip-mining statute,²⁵ changes in Clean Air Act requirements concerning scrubbers, and air quality violations that would impede conversion, as well as increased miner deaths from accelerated production, constitute the primary issues.

Alternative Sources: The Nuclear Push

The National Energy Plan proposes that our present petroleum-based energy systems ultimately be replaced with a system based on renewable resources. The alternative energy sources suggested include nuclear fission, solar, geothermal, municipal solid waste, hydroelectric, and fusion energy. The last four are easily discounted in adding significant amounts to the energy supply mix. Fusion remains in the research stage; most hydroelectric sites are in use;²⁶ and municipal solid waste and geothermal technologies can contribute very little on a national scale. In other words, nuclear fission and solar are the competing alternatives to replace petroleum and eventually coal. At present, 63 light water nuclear power plants supply about ten percent of United States electricity. The Plan proposes to encourage constructing the 75 plants now planned or under construction for 1985, thus providing about 20 percent of the nation's electricity needs. On the other hand, however, the Plan would indefinitely defer development of the Clinch River plutonium breeder reactor on the grounds that the risk of nuclear proliferation from plutonium reactors is too great.

Solar energy²⁷ is expected by the Plan to be used in 2.5 million homes by 1985 through a system of declining tax credits for increasing investment in solar equipment.²⁸ [7 ELR 10122] Although the Plan urges that the economy must be based on renewable energy sources by the year 2000 or face collapse, its solar goals are unrealistically high, barring a 75-percent sales increase in solar equipment or an unforeseen technological breakthrough.²⁹ Present high costs ($2,000) for solar hot water systems and extraordinarily high costs ($12-15,000) for solar space heating equipment preclude their use in most residences.³⁰

Barry Commoner suggests³¹ that the nuclear and solar options are mutually exclusive, the former requiring capital-intensive centralized systems while the latter requires decentralized systems. It is not entirely clear, however, that in the Plan's time frame nuclear fission will necessarily displace solar use, although projections for the use of each may be unrealistically high. Also, he says, the Plan's commitment to increasing electricity production to displace oil and natural gas in the residential-commercial sector would also displace competing solar-based systems, since each would be seeking to fill the unsaturated consumer markets of hot water heating, space heating, and air conditioning. Most importantly, the President's purported anti-nuclear stance may actually disguise a policy that will move us toward a breeder technology:

[T]he United States will defer indefinitely commercial reprocessing and recycling of plutonium, as well as the commercial introduction of the plutonium breeder. Second, the President is proposing to reduce the funding for the existing breeder program and to redirect it toward evaluation of alternative breeders, advanced converter reactors, and other fuel cycles, with emphasis on non-proliferation and safety concerns.³²

In other words, some sort of breeder will have a place in the United States energy policy. Nevertheless, the President's goal of reliance on light-water reactors may be stymied by the long lead times of up to ten years to build nuclear power plants.³³ Also, reliance on nuclear power plants may be misplaced in view of their low rate of on-line performance, which declined to 57.5 percent of capacity in 1976 from a cumulative average of 59.3 percent through 1975.³⁴

Conservation

The Plan emphasizes that energy conservation³⁵ is an integral part of the solution to the energy problem. Together with the demand-dampening provisions contained in the auto and gas tax sections of the Plan, the President proposes to give tax credits to homeowners who insulate their homes, change some voluntary appliance efficiency standards in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to mandatory standards,³⁶ require the Department of Housing and Urban Development to set mandatory energy conservation performance standards for new buildings by 1980 instead of 1981 as required by the Energy Conservation and Production Act of 1976,³⁷ and eliminate the regulatory barriers to the cogeneration of electricity from industrial process steam and utility rate reforms such as peak load pricing³⁸ and utility power pooling. Each of these proposals is a rational step in the direction of increased energy efficiency that would reduce the enormous waste in United States energy use. The general problem that each proposal faces is that no clearly defined and politically powerful constituency has formed around conservation in the way that production and exploitation garner lobbying support. This lack of constituency was evident when the insulation tax credit barely survived, with small modifications, a vote in the House Ways and Means Committee.

Significant Omissions

Conspicuous by its absence in President Carter's message was any reference to the use of mass transportation to reduce petroleum consumption. Although the President later said that the Administration's omnibus transportation package would occur in a later message,³⁹ its omission in the National Energy Plan leaves a nagging suspicion that its usefulness and desirability were overlooked by the Plan's authors. Since most current transportation is petroleum based, the shift away from petroleum implies at the very least that some planning ought to occur now to take account of new travel requirements. Furthermore, the Plan paid no detailed attention to the huge role the railroads might play, barring the use of coal slurry pipelines, in transporting Western coal under the Plan's increased coal production projections.

Another significant deficiency in the Plan is the lack of any mention of military energy use. Currently, the United States military accounts for 78 percent of the federal government's energy use.⁴⁰ Its 725,000 barrels of oil per day represents two percent of the nation's total energy consumption. Two days' oil consumption by the military equals the entire amount used during all of 1974 by the nation's urban bus systems.

Environmental Effects

With current technologies, there is a direct correlation between increased energy consumption and increased environmental degradation. Thus, any proposal that [7 ELR 10123] involves increasing energy supply and use, without controls, will adversely affect the environment. The Plan recognizes that increased reliance on coal will have deleterious effects, but proposes to couple this increased use with strict strip mining controls⁴¹ and current clean air standards.⁴² Nevertheless, there is no assurance that the Energy Plan's call for increased coal use would be retracted if the strip mining controls and clean air non-degradation requirements which emerge from the current congressional session are weaker than those proposed by the Administration.

A preliminary analysis of the Plan's environmental effects done by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) indicates that President Carter's proposal will, if implemented, have only incremental adverse environmental impacts.⁴³ Coal extraction would increase in any event, along with sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides emissions from increased coal use. Although domestic oil and gas exploration would increase hazards associated with offshore oil drilling, reducing oil imports will lessen tanker spill incidence. The CRS report hedges on the effect of auto emissions limitations, pending the outcome of congressional consideration of the Clean Air Act amendments. Also, the study does not discuss the hazards of nuclear power development, including waste disposal, thermal pollution, transmission line construction, uranium extraction, and radiation releases, which are acknowledged but not elaborated upon in the Plan.

Department of Energy

An important but vaguely described portion of the National Energy Plan involves the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Energy that would consolidate the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Energy Administration, and the Federal Power Commission and incorporate the Department of the Interior's economic functions relating to petroleum leasing decisions and the Interstate Commerce Commission's authority over oil pipelines. As originally introduced, H.R. 6804 and S. 826 gave the new Secretary of Energy control over oil and gas pricing and allocation. As passed by the Senate,⁴⁴ though, S. 826 gives pricing authority to an independent board in the manner of the FPC's present authority over natural gas prices, but subject to presidential veto. The House version,⁴⁵ on the other hand, grants the proposed Federal Energy Regulatory Commission independent pricing authority.

The major issues that face the conference committee concerning the Department of Energy include oil and gas pricing and allocation, the independence of the pricing authority, a particularly ill-advised "sunset" provision in the House bill requiring the agency to expire in 1982 absent an affirmative showing of its value, one-house veto of departmental regulations, and the division of environmental and economic aspects of federal lands leasing procedures between the Energy and Interior Departments. Resolution of these issues is uncertain, as the conference committee was scheduled to meet as this issue of ELR went to press.

One aspect of the Department of Energy issue deserves mention. Those who may advocate putting total control over energy matters — including environmental considerations — in a single department have singularly short memories. The Atomic Energy Commission had an analogously schizophrenic constitution of promotion balanced against regulation that eventually required its dissection.⁴⁶ Yet this dichotomy is a necessary evil of policy making, given the conflicts between energy development and environmental protection. Institutional checks and balances become significantly less effective when brought under the jurisdiction of a single agency.⁴⁷

Congressional Box Score

Although the Carter energy team has not struck out, the first mining has been nearly hitless. None of the provisions for home insulation and solar conversion tax credits, gas-guzzler taxes, small car rebates, and the standby gasoline tax have survived intact. Indeed, the lopsided committee votes have given the President notice that Congress considers these incentives and inhibitors to be inefficient and impractical methods of implementing a national energy plan. The standby gas tax and small car rebate are effectively dead. The insulation and solar conversion provisions face further tests in House Ad Hoc Committee considerations. At this early date it is unclear what the final shape of the energy package will be, but it is certain that the President cannot be faulted for lack of initiative. Congress has rarely been willing to impose mandatory energy conservation measures or face up to the energy pricing question for fear of the political consequences, and the manner in which it has treated the National Energy Plan portends that a similar fate may await President Carter's proposals.

1. For a discussion of former President Nixon's ill-fated Project Independence, see Comment, Some Questions for a Questionable "Project Independence," 4 ELR 10111 (1974); see also Comment, Toward on Energy Policy: Recent Studies Offer Guidance in Assessing the Administration's Forthcoming Proposals, 5 ELR 10003 (1975).

2. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, ENERGY POLICY AND PLANNING, THE NATIONAL ENERGY PLAN (Apr. 29, 1977).

3. Senate Republican Energy Initiative, 122 CONG. REC. S7519-22 (daily ed. May 13, 1977).

4. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, PRESIDENT CARTER'S ENERGY PROPOSALS: A PERSPECTIVE 6 (June 1977).

5. Carter, The Energy Problem, 13 WEEKLY COMPILATION OF PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS 560 (Apr. 25, 1977).

6. Commoner, The Hidden Jokers in Carter's Energy Deck, Washington Post, May 29, 1977, at B1, col. 3.

7. NATIONAL ENERGY PLAN, supra note 2, at 95.

8. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, supra note 4, at 11.

9. See HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMM., 95TH CONG., 1ST SESS., TAX ASPECTS OF H.R. 6831 REFERRED TO THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS (Comm. Print May 9, 1977).

10. Briefings on the National Energy Act Before the House Ad Hoc Comm. on Energy, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977).

11. See Joint Economic Comm., A JEC Staff Analysis: Projected Taxes & Revenues Under President Carter's Energy Package (May 20, 1977).

12. 42 U.S.C. §§ 6201-6422, ELR 41234.

13. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, supra note 4, at 54.

14. Lardner, Committee Kills Auto Tax Rebate, Levy on Gasoline, Washington Post, June 10, 1977, at A1, col. 6 (quoting Rep. Joseph L. Fisher (D-Va.)).

15. See Administration Suggests Gas Tax Use, Washington Post, May 18, 1977, at A6, col. 2; Gas Tax Idea by Brock Adams Bluntly Rejected, Washington Post, May 19, 1977, at A5, col. 4.

16. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, THE INTERNATIONAL ENERGY SITUATION: OUTLOOK TO 1985 at 2 (Apr. 1977).

17. WORKSHOP ON ALTERNATIVE ENERGY STRATEGIES, ENERGY: GLOBAL PROSPECTS 1985-2000 at 21 (1977).

18. Lyons, Panel Approves Deregulation of New Natural Gas, Washington Post, June 10, 1977, at A1, col. 2.

19. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, supra note 4, at 27.

20. NATIONAL ENERGY PLAN, supra note 2, at 95.

21. FEDERAL ENERGY ADMINISTRATION, 1976 NATIONAL ENERGY OUTLOOK 195 (1976).

22. 15 U.S.C. §§ 791-798, ELR 41231. See generally Meltz, The ESECA Coal Conversion Program: Saving Oil the Hard Way, 5 ELR 50146 (1975); Pedersen, Coal Conversion and Air Pollution: What the Energy Supply and Environmental Coordination Act of 1974 Provides, 4 ELR 50101 (1974).

23. Hornblower, Coal Conversion Failures Are Blamed on FEA Squabbling, Washington Post, May 28, 1977, at A14, col. 1.

24. Landsberg, Balancing the 1985 Energy Accounts, Washington Post, May 16, 1977, at A21, col. 1.

25. H.R. 2, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977), see H.R. REP. NO. 218, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977); S. 7, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977), see S. REP. NO. 128, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977).

26. FEDERAL POWER COMMISSION, HYDROELECTRIC POWER RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES (1977).

27. See generally D. HAYES, ENERGY: THE SOLAR PROSPECT (1977).

28. Some regulatory issues involved in the use of solar energy are discussed in an Article in this issue. Dean & Miller, Plugging Solar Power Into the Utility Grid, 7 ELR 50069 (July 1977).

29. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, supra note 4, at 89.

30. O'Toole, Doubts Raised on Insulation, Solar Energy Parts of Plan, Washington Post, Apr. 22, 1977, at A14, col. 1.

31. Commoner, supra note 6.

32. NATIONAL ENERGY PLAN, supra note 2, at 70 (emphasis added).

33. See GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, REDUCING NUCLEAR POWERPLANT LEADTIMES: MANY OBSTACLES REMAIN (Mar. 1977).

34. C. KOMANOFF & N. BOXER, NUCLEAR PLANT PERFORMANCE/UPDATE: DATA THROUGH DECEMBER 31, 1976 (Council on Economic Priorities 1977).

35. See generally D. HAYES, ENERGY: THE CASE FOR CONSERVATION (1976).

36. 42 U.S.C. §§ 6201-6422, ELR 41234.

37. 42 U.S.C. §§ 6801-6892, ELR 41252.

38. See Comment, Energy Conservation Through Rate Structure Reform: Electricity Rates Based on Marginal Costs, 6 ELR 10221 (Oct. 1976).

39. The President's News Conference of April 22, 1977, 13 WEEKLY COMPILATION OF PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS 588, 589 (Apr. 25, 1977).

40. McKillop, Gearing the Military's Guns for the Energy War, Washington Post, June 8, 1977, at A17, col. 1.

41. The strip mining bills are cited in note 25 supra.

42. H.R. 6161, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977), see H.R. REP. NO. 294, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977); S. 252, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977), see S. REP. NO. 127, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977).

43. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, AN INITIAL ANALYSIS OF THE PRESIDENT'S NATIONAL ENERGY PLAN 303-332 (June 1977).

44. S. 826, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977), reprinted at 122 CONG. REC. S7959-71 (daily ed. May 18, 1977), see S. REP. NO. 164, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977).

45. H.R. 6804, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977), reprinted at 122 CONG. REC. H5406-16 (daily ed. June 3, 1977), see H.R. REP. NO. 346, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977).

46. See Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, P.L. 93-438, 88 Stat. 1223, which split the Atomic Energy Commission into the Energy Research and Development Administration (promotion) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (regulation).

47. See S. 1481, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977), which would create a Department of Environment and Natural Resources that would balance the Department of Energy. See also 122 CONG. REC. S7314 (daily ed. May 10, 1977) (remarks of Sen. Brooke).