Roy Maynard: Early Returns

I feel it, too. I have stopped filling my gas tank; when the numbers climb past $25 and $30, I get depressed and stop pumping. I know I’ll be back at the pump that much sooner; I just don’t like making investments of that magnitude all at once.

The most natural feeling in the world, when faced with gas prices like these, is “somebody ought to do something.”

But let’s think this through; are we really sure that we want the government to be that somebody?

Let’s look at another time the government responded to calls to step in. The year was 1975. Gerald Ford was president.

“I am proposing a program which will begin to restore our country’s surplus capacity in total energy,” Ford declared in his State of the Union Address on Jan. 15 of that year. “In this way, we will be able to assure ourselves reliable and adequate energy and help foster a new, world energy stability for other major consuming nations.”

He warned of “energy difficulties” to come.

“This program will impose burdens on all of us with the aim of reducing our consumption of energy and increasing our production,” Ford said. “Great attention has been paid to the considerations of fairness, and I can assure you that the burdens will not fall more harshly on those less able to bear them.”

Ford called for reducing dependence on foreign oil — a refrain we’re hearing today. And he called for increased domestic production — ditto.

But he also called for direct government action. Look carefully at what form that action took.

“Obviously, voluntary conservation continues to be essential, but tougher programs are needed — and needed now,” Ford said. “Therefore, I am using presidential powers to raise the fee on all imported crude oil and petroleum products. The crude oil fee level will be increased $1 per barrel on Feb. 1, by $2 per barrel on March 1, and by $3 per barrel on April 1.”

Oil got more expensive. And it didn’t stop there.

“I am requesting the Congress to act within 90 days on a more comprehensive energy tax program,” Ford added. “It includes: excise taxes and import fees totaling $2 per barrel on product imports and on all crude oil; deregulation of new natural gas and enactment of a natural gas excise tax.”

Just as now, anger then was directed at the oil companies and their executives.

“I urge the Congress to enact a windfall profits tax by that date to ensure that oil producers do not profit unduly,” Ford said. “I am prepared to use presidential authority to limit imports, as necessary, to guarantee success.”

But how successful was his program?

I’m old enough to remember the gas lines and the rationing. My father’s Ford station wagon had an odd number at the end of the license plate, meaning we could buy gasoline on odd-numbered days — when it was available.

The energy crisis didn’t get better, in fact, until unrest in the Middle East calmed down. Historically, the 1973 energy crisis was largely caused by the Arab states’ use of what they termed the “oil weapon” as part of the Yom Kippur War.

And when the region blew up again in the 1979 Iranian revolution, another energy crisis was triggered.

As a country, we changed in some ways because of the crisis in the early 1970s. We began buying smaller cars — my dad’s Country Squire was traded in for a Fairmont. We slowed down to 55 mph (at least in theory).

But calling on the government to lead the way in major changes inevitably disappoints, as history shows.

“I have a very deep belief in America’s capabilities,” Ford declared in that 1975 speech. “Within the next 10 years, my program envisions: 200 major nuclear power plants; 250 major new coal mines; 150 major coal-fired power plants; 30 major new [oil] refineries; 20 major new synthetic fuel plants; the drilling of many thousands of new oil wells; the insulation of 18 million homes; and the manufacturing and the sale of millions of new automobiles, trucks, and buses that use much less fuel.”

Let’s remember those broken promises before we start asking the government to step in again.

Roy Maynard
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