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Wednesday, January 23. 1974
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Costlier Oil No Hoax
The Federal Energy Office (FEO) is having problems these days. And those problems aren't all related to providing for the nation's fuel and energy needs. More and more Americans believe that the energy crisis is a hoax. In the Jan. 18 issue of the Wall Street Journal, William Simon, director of the FEO, was reported to have said that the task of convincing the public of the seriousness of the energy shortage was one of his more difficult problems.
Skeptics of the energy shortage a something like the following music
The big oil companies have benefitted from the energy crisis. The government has granted the oil industry the right to increase prices, permission to increase offshore drilling, approval to build the Alaska pipeline and permission to begin leasing oil-shale lands. This proves that the oil companies have manufactured the energy crisis or at least manipulated it for their own benefit. It has been a mass cooperated with the oil interests in publicizing the shortage to take the public's mind off the Watergate scandal. These arguments are enhanced by the recent disclosure that many oil storage tanks are full.
This reasoning is attractive from a public relations point of view. It provides the public one or more villains and it implies an easy solution to the energy problem. Unfortunately, the skeptics' argument also ignores two important facts.
First, the argument ignores the Arab oil embargo. Although the embargo hasn't been very effective, there are indications that the embargo is beginning to reduce the flow of oil to the United States.
Furthermore, when oil shipments are resumed, as they probably will continue, the costs of fuel will
Second, government officials, oil industry experts and independent scientists all agree that most oil fields in the United States are past their prime. U.S. oil fields are producing less oil each year. There are more oil fields than Alaska and off-shore oil fields—but the cost of extracting the oil from these fields will be much greater.
These two facts seem to indicate that higher prices for petroleum products are inevitable. This is an unpleasant prospect, but it is one that must be faced. Short of nationalizing the oil industry, there is no feasible alternative to higher prices.
The petroleum industry shouldn't receive a blanks check to deal with the matter in any way it sees fit. The energy situation must be carefully monitored by the federal government to insure that this vital natural resource is used as effectively as possible. The FEO already is taking a step in this direction by planning a mandatory reporting system which would require oil companies to report their supplies of crude oil and petroleum products.
Some of the FEO proposals will require legislation to make the reporting system mandatory and thorough. Congress should enact a rigorous reporting law that would include all energy-producing industries. The information gained from a reporting system would be valuable for dealing with the energy problem as well as dispelling public doubts about the seriousness of the energy crisis.
—John R. Bender
President's Accountability A Must
(Shelsinger, winner of Palitzer Prizes in history and biography, teaches at the City University of New York. He is the author of "The Imperial Presidency.")
By AUTHUR M.SCHLESINGER
Few people doubt any longer that, nearly two centuries after the Declaration of Independence, the growth of presidential power has dangerously upset the balance of the constitution. Our presidency has become imperial; if we wish to make it constitutional again, we must understand why this has come about.
For most of our history, the presidency enjoyed a reasonable primacy in the constitutional order. But the primacy was limited by a system of accountability—formal accountability to Congress and to the Supreme Court; informal accountability to the executive branch; to the political parties at the business, to public opinion, at home and abroad.
But the system of consent had one fatal
area of weakness—foreign affairs. Here presidents often acted on their own, and Congress, the courts and the people were too unsure of their ground to enforce the same restraints they applied in domestic affairs. In time, power flowing to the presidency began to pervade and embolden the president. This has made the realization of accountability was nourished in the generation of world crisis after Pearl Harbor and reached its culmination in the Presidency of Richard M. Nixon.
Mr. Nikon's theory is that of the plebiscitary regime, like Charles de Gaulle's in France. He evidently came to feel that the President should be accountable only once every four years at the national election. The election, by the power of a vote, would mandate. The mandate shielded the President from Congressional, judicial and public harassment and empowered him to make war or make peace, to spend or to
impound, to give out information or to hold it back, in general to hypass Congress in an attempt to get through
Between elections, the only serious accountability, as the President's lawyers argued before the courts, was through the impeachment process. This plebisbitary theory was well on its way to changing the imperial presidency into a truly democratic presidency and Westegue gave us the chance and the incentive to rescue the republic.
How are we to get back to the presidency of the Constitution? Let me warn against the illusion of mechanical solutions. I don't think we need to rely on them. Obviously, the elimination of private money from campaigns would be a great gain. Congressional overhaul of the secrecy system is indispensable. War-Powers veto will not do harm and may do some good.
But the ultimate solution does not lie in clipping the President's wings. It lies in
enforcing his accountability
The problem, in short, ultimately is political, which is to say moral. As Joseph de Maistre once remarked, "Every nation has the government it deserves." The solution requires the raising of the con- presidents, so they will respect the process and accountability, and of Congresses, so that they will accept some of the responsibility.
"BUT CONGRESSMAN WOULDN'T KEMOVAL OF THE SKIPPER BE SOMEWHAT DEMORALIZING?"
The serious question today is whether the Congress and people really want to rein in the runaway presidency—whether we have not become so terrified of responsibility in the world that we should rather have wielded the power and make the decisions.
If we do want to contain the presidency, the effective way to get on with the project of the Constitution is to have presidents who place themselves above the Constitution and the laws that they can't get away with it. The most expeditious way to achieve this is through the process of impeachment.
The grounds for impeachment aren't, of course, confined to violations of criminal statutes or to other indictable offenses. The phrase in the constitution, "high crimes and misdemeanors," refers to crimes by high government officials, and certain law-criminals, which are crimes by ordinary persons against ordinary persons. The essential ground for impeachment, as Hamilton wrote in the 65th Federalist, is "the abuse or violation of some public trust" - the serious and pervading misuse of the highest official of his power and responsibility towards the duties grievously incompatible with the actions and obligations of his office.
The great virtue of impeachment is that it punishes the offender without punishing the institution. It would permit future presidents to use their legitimate and constitutional authority to enact them in a vigorous way that they had better not usurp power or forget accountability.
It is not a matter of forgiving and forgetting for the sake of the presidency but of exposing and punishing for the sake of the presidency.
The president, said Andrew Jackson, must be "accountable at the bar of public opinion for every act of his administration." If contemporary public opinion declines to hold Richard M. Nixon accountable for the questionation, then it must not be surprised if it assists in the transformation, if not in the death, of the republic.
U.S. Has Yet to Grasp Impact of Fuel Waste KANSAN
By TIM O'BRIEN The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - The American 'energy crisis, experts say, is shorand for the convergence of many negative variables—dwindling domestic supplies, pressure from those who want to breathe clean air, population increases, the insatiable appetite for cities and political tensions with nations that produce the raw materials of energy.
While it is not fair to say the waste of energy is overlooked, it is true that energy conservation is viewed by most observers as a palliative. A drop in the bucket of泵力
It is virtually impossible to measure even roughly the amount of fuel wasted in a given
year. But that has not kept people from guessing. Sen. Jennings Randolph, D-Wa. Va., estimates that the nation is squandering 40 per cent of its basic energy resources.
Perliaps the single best index of where and how much fuel is being unnecessarily consumed in energy use or independent energy consultant for the Treasury Department. The study found that through eight relatively easy, uncostly, and quick conservation measures, state agencies can save $1 billion a year.
- Setting home thermostats two degrees
lower than average - 50,000 barrels a day,
e.g.
-Increasing load factors on commercial aircraft from 50 per cent to 70 per cent
- Reducing speed limits to 50 miles an hour for passenger cars -150,000 barrels a year
Conservation measures in industry 500,000 barrels a day.
- Cease hot water laundering of clothes—
300,000 barrels a day.
- Mandatory car tune-ups every six months - 200,000 barrels a day.
- Conservation measures in commercial buildings (fans off at night, air conditioning only during office hours, installation of proper window insulation)=200,000 barrels
- Increasing pool cars for jo commuting from 1.3 to 2.3 persons per car) - 200,000 cars
The figures attached to each of the conservation measures are the lowest estimated savings. In fact, the study found that about 2 million barrels a day could be saved, another million barrels a day kept flat.
Tough Decisions Loom on Mideast
Bv STEPHEN S. ROSENFELD
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - It will take all the steadiness and balance the country has to shape a responsible policy in the political and economic crisis brought to a head by the October Arab-Israeli War. Not only is the situation itself painfully complicated and difficult, but it is also complicated by the crucial self-confidence, the sense of being able to cope with turmoil that has underlain our foreign policy since World War II.
To those who believe that the United States has held too much power or used it poorly, this is in some respects a boon. The "arrogance of power" school is bound to find a certain grim relief in the humiliity being forced on us.
We could turn hard on the Arab states that are withholding oil. One "omnious possible scenario," in Sen. J. William Fulbright's phrase, could be an armed invasion by the United States (or a local ally) of the relatively small and compact parts of Saudi Arabia where oil is produced. The Saudis warn that, in such a contingency, they would have to be prepared to take control of the industrialized oil consuming nations, including Europe and Japan, would allow their economies and national lives to be destroyed by a prolonged oil embargo. That is the logic of invasion.
There is, however, another set of possibilities centering on the reactions that the United States may be ready to consider, now that its capacity to control events has unravelled. The impulse to engage in a debate about the future is just a personal quirk or Mr. Nixon's. It is present in many Americans.
At least four harsh possibilities could flow from our current situation.
Finally, there is the possibility that American frustration will be expressed in a general shift toward unilateralism—across the foreign policy board. This would not be entirely new. One expression of it could be the unleashing of the CIA, which has been a favorite of Donald Trump for some time and could opt out of international projects such as exploitation of the great mineral resources of the seabed. Trade wars are a third way.
The same logic, to be sure, could produce a hard American turn on Israel, immense pressure to compel a territorial and political rollback which Israels genuinely thought was intolerable. This is the Israel's nightmare, and many of them see it becoming real. This scenario too, like the Arab counterpart, has its own Got-trapped ending; the Israelis, if they went, would take others with them.
A corollary possibility is for U.S. citizens to start publicly blaming American Jews for the Miseat and energy woes. Already, there are warnings of Anti-Semitism; some who do the warning evoke fear among others, who say it is not unavoidable but unavoidable and, anyway, as American Jews' own fault.
Needless to say, to list these possibilities is not to endorse them, or to predict that they will become real. It seems to me, evidently, that the government will face international turmoil to accommodation, from the Cold War to a “structure of peace,” have been confounded. A feeling that events are slipping out of control, is in the air. So perhaps we must be aware that the government will contemplate acts or the country will supply equipment.
Griff and the Unicorn
To avoid these excesses may take more maturity and cohesion than we have previously been called on to, and it will take a lot of time.
These eight steps are but the tip of the potential conservation iceberg, according to John Muller, an energy researcher in the Interior Department. He keeps a notebook filled with some 250 energy conservation measures, which he says are the "product of our thinking, if five or six of us sat down, we could come up with a much larger list."
In the field of agriculture, he suggests slowing down the speed of tractor engines when they are not running and requiring less power. He finds that in industry, where over 41 per cent of America's energy is consumed, he thinks energy consumption can be reduced by 10 per cent through "improved operating efficiency" in plants, involving little or no cost."
Conservation husts most when it hits a person's home. And it is in the home where it happens.
Muller estimates, for example, that if we throw our dishwashers—or were we to have no dishwashers—we should not eat them.
1, my friends, and many other students had our plans and life dramas altered last Saturday night. What this student is referring to is the cancellation of the Erote show shown in the previous night. Being of a logical nature, I posed the question, "Why?"
Reader Responds
Big Brother, Reveal Thyself
To the Editor:
But a logical answer I didn't get, rather it was, "I don't know." "Can you tell me," or "I don't know."
Well, one question leads to another, and I wondered why these people couldn't tell me why a movie was shown one night and not the other. "The Devil in Miss Jones" cancled? Is this another Vern Miller power play? Is an uptight faculty member getting his or her permission?
I'm from Chicago and have always enjoyed KU's openness and liberalism, but the cancellation last Saturday was a result of Big Brother looking over impressionistic naive students. I'll know I am truly in the land of Oz.
My point is that an explanation should have been given then and there, and if the cancellation was a result of faculty insults or of failure to respond those of you who walked out of the substitute Marx Brothers movie with nothing but a chuckle on your mind shouldn't consider your students. Docility, complicity and irony are our backs, and I am tired of being hooked.
Scott R. Busch
save 35,000 barrels of fuel a dav.
If during the summer we were to dry clothes on a line instead of in an automatic dryer, the savings would amount to 130,000 barrels a day.
Scott R. Busch Deerfield. Ill.. Junior
Besides unneeded conveniences, however, is the problem of outright inefficiency. Six per cent of electricity produced in the United States in 1970, for example, heat homes, despite the fact that electric heat is half as productive as oil or gas heat.
Still, electric heat is a growing trend. It is cheap to install, it is clean, it is considered modern and esthetically pleasing—but it is wasteful.
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Maoris are directors of hospitals and professors at universities. The president of the Federal Labor Party is a Maori. Two federal ministers are Maoris and two Maoris have been Miss New Zealand. Maoris are in every profession at every university, their most famous anthropologist, Te Taui ronga Sir (Sir Peter Buck), was a Maori.
The school dropout rate for Maoris is 25 per cent less than the national rate. Nearly 60 per cent of Maori homes have television and 73 per cent have washing machines.
Although their life expectancy is shorter than that of the Pakehans, their birth rate—nearly 40 per 1,000—is one of the highest in the world. Their numbers are increasing three times faster than those of white New Zealanders.
Interracial marriages are so common and so well accepted that Jock McEwen, the secretary of Maori and island affairs, says: "I don't understand New Zealanders who hold Maori blood."
It made them first-class citizens.
ROTURA, New Zealand—You know how America treated its Indians and how Australia treated its aborigens. But have you heard what New Zealand did to its Moors?
New Zealand has succeeded in racial affairs where other countries largely have failed because, particularly in recent years, there have been at least one-half Maori blood) as equals. Rather than assimilating them, it has promoted the idea of the compatibility of a biracial community, and most New Zealanders are about any Maori blood in their pedigree.
New Zealand's Natives First-Class Citizens
In one of the world's best examples of racial harmony, Pakehas (white New Zealanders) and Maoris (the brown-skinned Polynesians who settled the country about 1350 A.D.) live, work, play and go to school together without incident or tension. Segregated neighborhoods are unknown here.
By DAVID LAMB The Los Angeles Times
"For a long time we muddled along without a clear policy," said McEwen. "But very definite all our policies are directed toward the community." That's how the Marquis insists it.
Despite the important place that the Maori has in New Zealand life, it doesn't mean, as Tamara Reedy says, that "Every garden is a city" and that cities in pursuit of better jobs - 80 per cent now live in cities - has created problems, close contact between the two races and an increase in violence.
"The urbanization of the Maori has tremendous social, educational and economic implications," said Reedy, a graduate student at Wellington. "Maoris are in unskilled jobs far out of proportion to their numbers. Certainly if there were another depression, they would be the first to feel it. When you have one group clearly indexed by color, it will be more evident."
But the Parliament has included four Maoris but since 1876, elected by the Maori white electors. Some critics have called the policy tokenism, but the Maoris themselves have been unwilling to change their position and possibly loss representation entirely.
Since 1968, Maori and Pakeha have been able to run for each others election seats. Several Maori has run unsuccessfully for non-Maori seats. One who tried was Charles Bennett in Rotorua, a north island city that was one of the first Maori settlements.
"Our greatest problem has been an education system that, by necessity, was originated and oriented for European needs," said Bennett, president of the Labor and the commander of New Zealand's high decorated Mori battalion in World War II.
"This is bound to result in casualties all the way down the line, especially if the Maoris have trouble mastering English. The education system is slowly becoming more responsive to our needs and in the long run this will close the occupational gap."