Where has all the oil gone?

Nicholas von Hoffman

Washington In the hours after the President gave his SALT speech to Congress the White House said it got 70 or 80 telegrams and telephone calls in support, somewhat more in disagreement, and hundreds more asking why Jimmy Carter was fooling around with that treaty instead of getting us more petrol. Since Carter hasn't led a rich man's life, it is extraordinary that he still apparently doesn't understand that it isn't Edward Kennedy or Governor Brown but petrol which threatens his future tenure. He doesn't have to deliver the stuff, but he does have to demonstrate to the striking truck drivers, the protesting taxicab men, the stricken resort industry, the transportation-strangled vegetable and fruit farmers, the home-owners terrified by increases in their heating bills, and to unknown millions cursing him in the queues waiting for petrol — to all these he must demonstrate that their government is protecting them from robbery, and that the problem is being dealt with by intelligent and reasonably competent officials.

So far he has not done so. There are the big errors which the public doesn't yet comprehend, and the small confusions which people do see and upon which they form their judgments. Among the big mistakes was the campaign over the last two years to discourage the use of natural gas, in the mistaken belief that it was in especially short supply. The reverse has proved to be the case, so the conversion by industry — under pressure from government — from gas to oil could not have been more ineptly timed. But perhaps a synoptic diary of government actions and official statements on energy over the past month will convey the nature of the small mistakes and the out-of-control atmosphere.

19 May: Rumours circulate Washington that the big oil companies and the Department of Energy are discussing an out-ofcourt settlement of an alleged 1.7 billion dollar overcharge. This is but the latest in a gnat-cloud of government price-cheating accusations, of such complexity that not even the two army corps of lawyers discharging heavy calibre memoes at each other can understand them.

20 May: After having encouraged the oil companies to build up stocks of home heating and diesel oil in preference to gasoline, the government asks for a reversal in their priorities. This is a result of the long lines in California, whose innocent citizens are being assailed by Federal officials as 'petrol pigs'.

24 May: The Department of Energy, reacting to reports of severe diesel fuel shortage, begins an allocation programme. This comes only a few days after it was learned that in April a record number of diesel-powered passenger cars (22,552) were sold to those gullible people who thought that diesel oil was cheaper and more plentiful than gasoline.

29 May: President Carter says that 'we now expect to see mild increases in oil supply which should alleviate our present shortages.' As for his over-publicised use of a 'petrol-guzzling' helicopter on a recent fishing trip, the President is quoted as saying, 'I really believe that it's good not only for me but the country to be able to do that on occasion.' While the country puzzles about whether we should all do as he suggested and leap on passing helicopters„ Gulf and Texaco, two of the country's largest oil companies, say that gasoline deliveries will be down 30 per cent from this time last year.

30 May: After having previously accused them of a 'massive rip-off of the American people', the President invites representatives of the major oil companies to the White House where he tells them that 'we're all in this together.'

1 June: President Carter attacks the nation's second largest oil company, Mobil, for its opposition to petrol price de-control.

2 June: In Indianapolis, Indiana, Pres' ident Carter cites public fears of 'being misled and cheated' as the main obstacles to a solution of the country's energy problems; meanwhile, in Phoenix city, Alabama, a gentleman named Digger O'Dell buries himself in a coffin under a parking lot: 'I'll come up when gasoline prices go down. This will be the 158th time I've been buried and I hope it's the next to last time, because I ain't no spring chicken anymore.'

7 June: The Secretary of Energy, James Schlesinger, predicts improved gasoline supplies in the coming weeks. Blaming the shortages on the companies being 'unduly conservative' about using crude oil inventories, he says 'the picture is spotty but froto all the data we've been able to acquire we still expect an upturn in the arrival of crude oil.'

11 June: Calls for Schlesinger's resignation grow apace with the petrol queues. The talk is that Schlesinger is bored by the subject of energy. Choosing his words like another man pushes soggy dumplings to the edge of his plate, the Secretary is quoted as saying about his 'job that 'this is not a responsibility that is entirely pleasurable on a day-to-day basis.'

13 June: Schlesinger attacks oil companies for not running their refineries closer to capacity but repeats that 'if we continue to have arrivals of crude oil at this level, we ought to be able to turn around the available product in the summer months to all even greater degree.' 14 June: As petrol queues become part of the daily routine in yet more States, and truckers extend their protest strike, the House of Representatives by a vote of 340 to 4 passes a resolution asking the Administration to explain what on earth is happening. As the government announces that it is considering asking people to turn up the thermostats on their air conditioners, there are endless stories about miraculous new automobile engines that get 70 miles to the gallon and new fuels made of everything from baby's nail clippings to sewer gas recaptured from a bubble inside the Capitol dome.

15 June: Administration spokesmen warn the oil industry that refineries which are not processing the stores of crude at acceptable rates may have these stores taken away.

18 June: The Secretary of Transportation, Brock Adams, says that the Administ ration and America itself remain fixated on the automobile as the primary tool of transportation. He looks forward to 'more energy-efficient' cars. 19 June: President Carter dedicates a solar device to help heat the White House dish-washer. While doing so he compares himself and his leadership to William HenrY Harrison, who, he says incorrectly, installed electric lights in the White House in 1891. Actually, Harrison served for four months in 1841 and had his lights turned out by a Pneumonia bacillus. His grandson, Benjamin, put electricity in the White House, and at the rate things are going, Mr. Carter will be lucky to retire to share their unilluminated obscurity. On the same day. Schlesinger predicts more gasoline again. 21 June: Secretary Schlesinger says that the oil companies aren't refining fast enough, but he's agraid to make them for fear they'll stop importing crude oil.

22 June: After re-reallocating diesel oil supplies, President Carter flies off to Tokyo, presumably to tell his peers the secret of how he does it. And so America sails on without policy, programme or plan.