I
Page 2 THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 1976
‘Temporary’ federal agencies
must eventually be abolished
By JOHN TOWER
U.S. Senator for Texas
WASHINGTON — One of the
more cynical — but regrettably
more accurate — maxims of politics
is that there is no such thing as a
“temporary” government agency.
The National Commission on the
Standardization of Screw Threads,
for example, was established in 1919
for a three-year study. Though
modified, it is with us yet today.
The latest and perhaps most la
mentable example of the perma
nence of “temporary” government
agencies is the Federal Energy Ad
ministration (FEA). Only a gleam in
a bureaucrat’s eye two years ago,
FEA has since mushroomed into an
agency of 3,400 employees with an
annual budget of $142 million. Like
the National Commission on the
Standardization of Screw Threads, it
seems destined to long outlive the
purpose for which it was created.
The FEA was created in early
1974 as an emergency means to deal
with the Arab oil embargo of 1973-
74. FEA was to develop and imple
ment a program of controls to carry
the U.S. through the embargo crisis
and put us back on the road to self-
sufficiency.
The oil embargo which spawned
its creation is now over, but there are
no signs of retrenchment at FEA. A
bill presently before Congress would
extend the life of this “temporary”
agency for three more years, and
nearly triple its budget.
It is difficult to find any justifica
tion for the continued existence —
much less the expansion — of the
FEA. When the Arab oil embargo
struck, Americans were dependent
upon foreign sources for nearly 40
percent of their energy. Today, after
two vigorous years of FEA activity,
we must import more than half of all
the oil and natural gas we have.
FEA’s chief contribution during
this period seems to have been
“Energy Ant,” a cartoon character
that has provided passing amuse
ment to third-graders across the
country.
Aside from the third graders, FEA
is most popular with lawyers who
have mastered its 700 pages of rules,
with contractors who will share in
the $300 million FEA will pass out
this year, and with a few companies
which have profited from disparities
in FEA regulations.
FEA is not so popular with oilmen
who find their drilling operations
hamstrung by foolish FEA regu
lations, by working men and women
who are laid off their jobs when the
drilling rigs are stacked, and by con
sumers who are forced to pay Higher
prices for energy than they would
have to pay on a free market.
Its first Administrator, Treasury
Secretary William Simon, has de
scribed FEA as an “outrage” and a
“potential monster” which ought to
be abolished. I agree. Along with
Sens. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) and
Dewey Bartlett (R-Okla.), I’ve in
troduced a bill to abolish FEA.
Perhaps we can prove that there is
such a thing as a temporary govern
ment agency after all.
Cbe Battalion
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Managing Editor Richard Chamberlain
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What do you know about Carter?
PORTLAND, ORE. — With the
latest round in the unending presi
dential primary battle, it is both
tempting and dangerous to exagger
ate the importance of the Republican
returns and to misread or minimize
the message from the Democratic
results.
President Ford’s handsome
victories in Michigan and Maryland
saved the dinner party at the French
Embassy and spared Rogers Morton
from filling those empty bottles on
his shelf with hemlock. They also
shot holes in the always shaky theory
that the “crossover vote” was the
source of Mr. Ford’s problem. But
they did not do much else.
Maryland and Michigan are states
with a well-established habit of
nominating moderates in Republi
can primaries, and the fact that Mr.
Ford won there should have sur
prised no one — even after five los
ses in the previous six tries. They
imply that he should survive the
challenge from Ronald Reagan in
Oregon this Tuesday, in Rhode Is
land on June 1 and in New Jersey and
Ohio on June 8.
But that says nothing about the
odds in the other eight states that are
still to vote, including California,
where the makeup of the Republican
party is more conservative and the
odds for Reagan more favorable.
The promised shift of some 130
New York delegates from the un
committed column to Mr. Ford’s
support on Monday will restore the
President to the lead in the delegate
race for the first time since the Texas
sweep by Reagan on May 1. But un
less he can defeat Reagan in Reagan’s
home state of California, he may still
ssasasassesa
David S.
Broder
wind up the primary season with
fewer delegates than bis challenger.
And that would raise an interest
ing question; Would the Republican
convention in which the conserva
tive candidate has the larger number
of elected delegates permit the
nomination of an alternative candi
date whose key support was fur
nished by Nelson Rockefeller and his
allies?
Mr. Ford might be able to
negotiate such an arrangement, but
not without incurring conservative
bitterness. The memory of Richard
Nixon’s 1960 “Treaty of Fifth Av
enue” with the same Nelson Roc
kefeller is burned deep in the mem
ory of those who attend Republican
conventions. That agreement, which
ended Rockefeller’s 1960 platform
rebellion and assured Nixon’s nomi
nation, was the starting point of the
1964 Goldwater movement. And the
conservatives who took power in
1964 have never relinquished it. It
would be surprising if they ac
quiesced peaceably in Rockefeller
maneuvering to dictate the 1976 tic
ket.
By winning Michigan and Mary
land, Mr. Ford prevented his own
premature extinction. But he left
himself with huge political prob
lems, so the headlines greeting his
revival are probably exaggerated.
On the other hand, less attention
than it deserves has been paid to
what has happened in the Demo
cratic race. The warning flags are fly
ing for front-runner Jimmy Carter.
He has simply not been able to con
solidate his position in the way a
genuinely strong candidate should,
and his failure suggests that a fun
damental reevaluation of his position
may be imminent.
When Carter came roaring out of
his “breakthrough week,” the week
in which he won Pennsylvania,
Texas, Georgia and Indiana and
eliminated “Scoop Jackson and
Hubert Humphrey as active oppo
nents in the primaries, he seemed
quite literally on the verge of nomi
nation. Since then, however, his
record shows defeats by newcomers
Frank Church in Nebraska and Jerry
Brown in Maryland, and close es
capes from Morris Udall in Connec
ticut and Michigan.
The lessons of May are plainly that
the voters seeking a new fact in the
White House can be beguiled by
others than Carter and those whose
concerns are bread-and-butter is
sues still have serious doubts about
him.
To this reporter, the second find
ing is even more significant than the
first. Both the Church and Brown
campaigns play off the same theme of
disillusionment with big-spending,
bureaucratic Washington that Car
ter exploited so effectively himself
earlier in the spring. If the Demo
crats choose to nominate such a can
didate, Carter, with his big delegate
lead, is still likely to be theirmn
But Udall stopped Carter inC«
necticut and Michigan, notbyap^
his message, but by challenging)
Despite the strong support lag
political and labor leaders thres
Carter, despite the continiiin
fumbling of his own organizal
Udall achieved unexpected suta
by his persistence in asking:^
do you really know about Jin
Carter that makes you so sure
want to nominate him?
That less than half the voters
those two industrial statescouldjj
satisfactory rationalizations for sup
porting the presumed nomineeisi
story as underplayed as the F*
victories in Michigan and Marvin
may be exaggerated.
(c) 1976, The Washington Fi
Company
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1976