OIL STILL KING ENERGY BILL OFFERS SMALL SPUDS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 24, 1992                   TAG: 9202240236
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
OIL STILL KING ENERGY BILL OFFERS SMALL SPUDS
IN A CLASSIC congressional tradeoff, the Senate ditched two conflicting sections of a comprehensive energy bill last week and sent the measure to the House by a 94-4 vote. What's left of the bill promotes alternatives to petroleum such as nuclear power and natural gas, and sets new energy-efficient standards for lights and industrial motors.
So far, not bad - assuming that safety regulations and environmental protections aren't slighted.
But reducing dependence on oil by those routes will be a very long and uncertain haul. It's small potatoes compared to what an energy bill could do if it raised taxes on oil. That is the only way to end America's costly and potentially dangerous addiction that requires foreign oil to satisfy.
One of the conflicting sections removed by the bill's sponsors called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas exploration. It is well to keep off-limits a fragile wilderness that, by the most optimistic estimates, would yield little more than 3 billion barrels. That's only about a six-month supply for this oil-gulping country.
In contrast, in the same period that much oil could be saved - created, one might say - by increasing the fuel efficiency of U.S.-made autos by 2 miles a gallon.
But the other section of the Senate bill that was jettisoned would have tightened fuel-economy requirements for cars and trucks, which was opposed by Detroit.
Needless to say, the bill does not mention the need for a hefty gas-tax hike - say, by 50 cents per gallon. Only an increase of that magnitude could begin to wean America away from its dependence on oil and curb the environmental damage and wasteful use of land and other resources from daily consumption of 17 million barrels of crude.
There is no way our own reserves can satisfy our present demand; half of what we burn comes from abroad, and that proportion is likely to increase as long as the fuel remains cheap.
The saying goes: No pain, no gain. But by rejecting the pain of a gasoline-tax increase now, we're setting ourselves up for a different but greater kind of pain down the road.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB