The Lights Are Going Out

RICHARD P. RUNYON and LAWRENCE ROCKS

President Nixon has sent his Administration’s energy message to Congress. Presumably at this point the nation should feel that its future is secure from the awesome dislocations that a chronic energy shortage would engender. Perhaps many observers do feel secure. We do not. A long- range analysis of the forces at work in our government’s energy supply strategies forces us to several conclusions: 1) cost-push inflation will accelerate with resultant ever-stronger price, wage, and even profit controls to check it; 2) energy rationing is just about inevitable by the latter half of this decade with the resultant creation of the necessary government apparatus; and 3) foreign- policy realignments will shatter the present patterns with the result of an in-gathering of nations about the Soviet Union—the only energy-rich superstate. These trends should force the Administration to formulate a meaningful energy policy built on the twin principles of synthetic fuels and energy conservation. Which alternative will prevail?

RICHARD P. RUNYON and LAWRENCE ROCKS

President Nixon has sent his Administration’s energy message to Congress. Presumably at this point the nation should feel that its future is secure from the awesome dislocations that a chronic energy shortage would engender. Perhaps many observers do feel secure. We do not. A long- range analysis of the forces at work in our government’s energy supply strategies forces us to several conclusions: 1) cost-push inflation will accelerate with resultant ever-stronger price, wage, and even profit controls to check it; 2) energy rationing is just about inevitable by the latter half of this decade with the resultant creation of the necessary government apparatus; and 3) foreign- policy realignments will shatter the present patterns with the result of an in-gathering of nations about the Soviet Union—the only energy-rich superstate. These trends should force the Administration to formulate a meaningful energy policy built on the twin principles of synthetic fuels and energy conservation. Which alternative will prevail?