Nation: We're Taking Control

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But the President got able assistance from his Senate allies, especially Majority Leader Robert Byrd and Senators Henry Jackson and Alan Cranston. They labored skillfully to keep wobbling votes in line. The final tally was a bewildering blend of liberals and conservatives from both parties. The opposition, similarly, contained such strange political bedfellows as Ted Kennedy and Barry Goldwater, George McGovern and Robert Dole. Byrd eventually won approval of the bill by not exaggerating its importance. The compromise was better than nothing, he told the Senate, and it was now or never. The U.S. had to demonstrate to the world that it could produce some kind of energy program, said Byrd time and time again. The Senators were "convinced the gun was to their heads," said Jackson. "There was no alternative. We just hammered that theme over and over."

If the bill is approved by the House, where another rugged battle is expected, it will only partly relieve the nation's energy problems. Despite Carter's cries of triumph, the bill is far different from what he originally proposed. The legislation he put forward last year in response to his own declaration of a "moral equivalent of war" actually called for the continued regulation of gas prices, whereas the final version is a complex formula for gradual deregulation by 1985. Even its supporters gave it a grade of C minus; opponents flunk it outright.

Producers are pleased that the measure eventually removes price controls from so-called new gas—about 50% of the total supply. Until 1985, however, the bill imposes price ceilings on intrastate gas for the first time and establishes a complex multitiered price system for new gas, depending on how far new wells are drilled from existing wells containing "old" gas. An additional 300 bureaucrats will be needed temporarily to administer this revised price structure; the cost of the effort has been estimated to total $9.6 million. "The bill has been called an administrative nightmare," says John E. Swearingen, chairman of Standard Oil of Indiana. "Instead it is a regulatory disaster."

Estimates vary wildly on what the bill will eventually accomplish. The Senate Energy Committee figures that the cost of gas to consumers will increase about 10% a year. Consumer groups that fought the bill claim there will be a 353% jump in prices between 1977 and 1985. The Department of Energy expects an annual increase in gas production of 2 trillion cu. ft.; the congressional budget office estimates an additional .7 to .8 trillion cu.ft. a year; consumer groups that favored the bill say no increase at all will occur. Both the Senate Energy Committee and DOE predict that by 1985 greater production of natural gas will save the nation 1.4 million bbl. a day in imported oil. Consumer groups deny there will be any such saving. Much depends, of course, on how innumerable lawyers interpret a bill that even they have trouble understanding. But at least, after 18 months, the Senate finally voted on a national plan to conserve energy.