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Surveying the nation, TIME correspondents found that those 1973 gasoline lines forced by the Arab boycott, and the plant and school closings caused by natural-gas shortages last winter, had not receded as far in public memory as many skeptics had thought. The support for Carter's crisis-mood approach cut broadly across partisan and regional lines. A surprisingly prevalent refrain was: "I'm all for it, but most other people won't go for it, and Congress will kill it."
Sentiment for the program is stronger in New England, whose frugal Yankees depend heavily on imported oil to survive harsh winters. "Most of the things Carter's mentioned, we're already doing," claimed Robert Hamm, owner of a small machine shop in Boston. "Why would you burn a fleet of lights and put up with a huge electric bill for nothing?"
On the West Coast, cars are especially vital. But the onrush of newcomers, especially in California, has raised environmental worries and brought new sympathy for conservation. There may be more resistance to sweeping energy saving in the Midwest, where farms grow on gas and the auto industry looms large, and in the South, where cold is rarely a concern and tourism means money. Yet even in fuel-rich Texas, presumably set in its freewheeling ways, local Pollster John Staples found after Carter's presentation that more people approved his energy approach than opposed it. Nearly half said they would buy a smaller car if the price of gasoline were to rise from its present 550 per gal. to 750.
Whatever the region, TIME found spirited answers to the questions Carter's program has posed.
First, are Americans willing to sacrifice? "Carter said it best when he said we'll never be able to live the same again," says Robert Chess, a machine repairman of Clackamas, Ore. "I'm going to have to change my life-style." Paula Johnson, a suburban Atlanta housewife, has already moved her mother to a nursing home closer to her house, shifted to a smaller car and begun insulating her home. "I'm quite willing to cut down my heat," says Philadelphia Personnel Manager June Rosato. "Shivering a little is the least I can do for my country."
Some who are skeptical about how much sacrifice is necessary are nevertheless willing to make personal decisions that, if multiplied by millions, would create the shifts Carter's plan seeks. Vance Nimrod of Greenville, Miss., does not intend to get rid of his current Cadillac, but vows: "I'll never buy another one." Richard Otis, a bricklayer in Memphis, had been thinking about buying a Lincoln Continental, but is now looking at smaller cars. Even without the possibility of increased oil-heating costs, Patty Hotchkiss, a town board member in Bedford, N.Y., is looking for a small, well-insulated house to replace her large, drafty one. But she didn't need Carter to inspire the move; her oil bill for January was $1,060.
Yet there are many Americans who either cannot or will not alter their car-driving habits, suggesting that the cost of gasoline will not, alone, much reduce consumption. "My driving is out of necessity," says Diana Brown, a Portland, Ore., bookkeeper and secretary. "My reasons aren't going to change just because it costs me a nickel a gallon more to get there."