79-14-A2

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Six Lies on Energy

Transcript In a recent column in the New York Times, Yale Brazen, a professor of business economics at the University of Chicago, argues that Americans are being subjected to a propaganda barrage of startling dimensions on the subject of energy. At the center of this propaganda are six lies about energy which are steering the public and policymakers toward the wrong responses to our energy problems. The lies are being told, Professor Brazen writes "in support of higher energy taxes and tighter controls over voluntary market choices." Who is telling the lies? Professor Brazen doesn't say. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. The first falsehood is that the world will run out of oil in the 1980's. On the contrary, a record 36-year supply of reserves is already staked out. Further discoveries of suspected supplies could add another 50 years to those reserves. The second lie, according to Professor Brazen, is that the United States balance-of-payment deficit and the erosion of the dollar are caused by the rising price and volume of imported oil. Not so, says Professor Brazen. If this were true, then Germany and Japan should be in deeper trouble than we are, for they import all of their crude oil and natural gas. Instead of blaming oil imports, we should look to unprecedented peacetime budget deficits since 1973 as the major culprit. The third lie is that the long gasoline lines of 1974 were caused by the Arab oil embargo. The real cause, Brazen explains, is that the Federal Energy office (now the Department of Energy) - "overemphasized heating oil production at the expense of gasoline, then under-allocated gasoline to metropolitan areas and overallocated to rural areas." The fourth falsehood is that we are increasingly vulnerable to an Arab oil embargo. Today, there are more alternative sources of oil available than in 1974; sources such as Nigeria, Mexico and the Canadian Arctic. Brazen says simply "we are more vulnerable to Energy department blunders than a possible oil embargo." The fifth lie is that American taxpayers must foot the bill for a 25 billion dollar oil stockpile to reduce our vulnerability to an embargo. If we ended the threat of mandatory reallocation, we would encourage greater private storage. The final lie is that the government must plow billions of dollars into developing new energy supplies before oil runs out. Given its record on such things as Amtrak and the Postal service, the federal bureaucracy isn't exactly the first place I'd turn to. Private investment on energy research and development is proceeding at a respectable pace. These six lies aren't the only falsehoods clouding our national energy debate. But they are among the major reasons why, under current policies, we are getting nowhere toward solving our serious energy problems. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 79-14-A2 Production Date 10/02/1979 Book/Page Online PDF Audio Youtube? No
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