IP: bravo for Jimmy!

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

[ I have included this on the grounds that Carter has been as non political 
as any past President I know. When he talks it is worth listening to for me 
djf]

> Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 15:13:45 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Lenny Foner <foner () media mit edu>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
> Carter contradicts W on the front page of today's Post!  [Well, kinda;
> the link to the article at least appears there...]
>
> http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37159-2001May16.html
>
> Misinformation and Scare Tactics
>
> By Jimmy Carter
>
> Thursday, May 17, 2001; Page A23
>
> It has been more than 20 years since our country developed a comprehensive
> energy policy. It is important for President Bush and Congress to take
> another look at this important issue, but not based on misleading
> statements made lately by high administration officials. These comments
> have distorted history and future needs.
>
> I was governor of Georgia during the administration of Richard Nixon, when
> a combination of oil shortages and an OPEC boycott produced a real energy
> crisis in the United States. Five years later, the Iran-Iraq war shut off
> 4 million barrels of the world's daily oil supplies almost overnight, and
> the price of energy more than doubled in just 12 months. This caused a
> wave of inflation in all industrialized countries and created energy
> shortages. As before, there were long lines of vehicles at service
> stations, with drivers eager to pay even astronomical prices for available
> fuel.
>
> No energy crisis exists now that equates in any way with those we faced in
> 1973 and 1979. World supplies are adequate and reasonably stable, price
> fluctuations are cyclical, reserves are plentiful, and automobiles aren't
> waiting in line at service stations. Exaggerated claims seem designed to
> promote some long-frustrated ambitions of the oil industry at the expense
> of environmental quality.
>
> Also contrary to recent statements by top officials, a bipartisan Congress
> worked closely with me for four years to create a well-balanced approach
> to the problem. No influential person ever spoke "exclusively of
> conservation," and my administration never believed that "we could simply
> conserve or ration our way out of" any energy crisis. On the contrary, we
> emphasized both energy conservation and the increased production of oil,
> gas, coal and solar energy. Permanent laws were laboriously hammered out
> that brought an unprecedented commitment to efficient use of energy
> supplies. We mandated improved home insulation, energy savings in the
> design of industrial equipment and home appliances and a step-by-step
> increase in gas mileage of all automobiles manufactured in our country.
>
> When I was inaugurated, American vehicles were averaging only 12 miles per
> gallon. Today, new cars reach more than twice this gas mileage, which
> would be much higher except for the failure to maintain the efficiency
> standards, beginning in the Reagan years. (Gas mileage has actually gone
> down during the past five years.)
>
> Official statistics published by the departments of energy and labor
> reveal the facts: Since I signed the final energy bills in 1980, America's
> gross national product has increased by 90 percent, while total energy
> consumption went up only 26 percent. Our emphasis on coal and other
> sources of energy and improved efficiency has limited petroleum
> consumption to an increase of only 12 percent. During this time,
> non-energy prices have risen 2 1/2 times as much as energy prices, and
> gasoline prices have actually declined by 41 percent, in real terms and
> even including the temporary surge in the past two years.
>
> Although these energy conservation decisions have been criticized as "a
> sign of [my] personal virtue," it is clear that the benefits have resulted
> from a commitment to improved technology, with extremely beneficial
> results for American consumers, business and commerce. Top executives in
> the oil industry should acknowledge their tremendous freedom to explore,
> extract and market oil and gas products that resulted from the decisions
> made by Congress during my term in Washington.
>
> In fact, our most difficult legislative battle was over the deregulation
> of oil and gas prices, designed so that competitive prices would both
> discourage the waste of energy and promote exploration for new sources of
> petroleum products. At the end of 1980, every available drilling rig in
> the United States was being utilized at full capacity, and dependence on
> foreign imports was falling rapidly.
>
> Despite these facts, some officials are using misinformation and scare
> tactics to justify such environmental atrocities as drilling in the Arctic
> National Wildlife Refuge. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation
> Act, which I signed in December 1980, approved 100 percent of the offshore
> areas and 95 percent of the potentially productive oil and mineral areas
> for exploration or for drilling. We excluded the wildlife refuge,
> confirming a decision first made by President Dwight Eisenhower, when
>
> Alaska became a state in 1959, to set aside this area as a precious
> natural heritage.
>
> Those who advocate drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to meet
> current needs are careful to conceal the facts that almost none of the
> electricity in energy-troubled California is generated from oil.
> It is important for private citizens and organizations to know the facts
> and to join in the coming debates -- so we can continue the policies of
> the late 1970s: a careful balance between production and conservation.
> Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta.



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