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In the all-too-thin blue vinyl notebooks that he takes to Tokyo, Carter will carry a proposal to set up an international corporation that would fund efforts to develop synthetic fuels—for example, the conversion of coal into liquid fuel.
Such processes are feasible but at present very expensive, and they may have severe environmental side effects.
Carter is likely to win agreement only on the principle that production of synthetic fuels should be encouraged—no international body, and no pledges of hard cash. The seven nations doubtless will exchange promises to cut oil imports and to expand production of coal and nuclear power, but not bind themselves to any specific steps to reach any of those goals.
None of that is likely to make OPEC leaders do anything but smile.
Across the U.S., as citizens struggle with the irritation of gas lines and dollar-a-gallon prices, a large number persist in believing that the whole mess has been deliberately contrived by the oil companies, aided and abetted by Government collusion or ineptitude. Washington in fact cannot evade the charge of bungling. A few weeks ago the Department of Energy was predicting that gasoline supplies would be more plentiful in June than in May. Now officials confess that they have no idea how much gas drivers can count on buying for the rest of the month, the summer, the year.
One source of trouble has been that the Government has been trying to please everybody in managing the shortage. The Department of Energy has set up a hideously complex allocation system that essentially works like this: an oil company first sets aside 5% of whatever gasoline and diesel fuel it expects to have available each month to be used as state governments direct. It then sets aside as much more as may be demanded by certain priority users—police, for example. After that, it parcels out the remaining supplies among gas stations, essentially equally but with some adjustments; stations in areas where population and consumption have been growing rapidly get more.
Trying to manipulate this system, allocators resemble a tailor who tries to get cloth to mend a hole in the sleeve of a coat by snipping a piece out of the back and hoping no one will notice. Critics charge that far too many exemptions have been granted. One example: the rule that farmers should get as much gasoline and diesel fuel as they demanded made sense in early spring, when they were rushing to plant crops. But the regulation was continued too long, and may be one reason why some rural areas now are awash in gasoline while cities run dry.
But, while it is easy enough to blame the Government, the public's "me first" spirit is fouling up matters too. Truckers are now demanding unrestricted access to diesel fuel, while farmers get all they want. Simultaneously, other consumers clamor for exemptions for any gas-rationing system or demand that heating-oil stocks be built up to guard against a cold winter. There is no way that refineries can give farmers and truckers unlimited supplies, turn out maximum supplies of gasoline and build heating-oil inventories—and the Government has failed to set clear priorities.