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Show Page 10 The Utah Independent April 10f 1975 EMBATLED ELECTRIC UTILITIES RE: HR3607 Congressional Record The Paper That Dares To Take 22475 (Mr. Roma lb asked and was than four times its present to address the investment and compares with the given permission I House for minute and to revise approximately 145 billion dollars and extend his remarks.) spent during the last 5 years when the growth was. as mentioned Mr. Roncaljo. Mr. Speaker, depreciating capital items to earlier, 7.4. on February 14 the Consumer calculate profits of the STOP INFLATION Commission Product Safety corporation. Under federal law a a Is there an answer to solve this printed in the Federal Register corporation can only depreciate an Electric ultilty petition, by the Committee for item up to the amount that it cost; problem? Inc., a Chicago however, replacement of the same executives claim that if the Handgun Control, control lobby, which asks item when the older one is worn-oguaranteed return to the utilities handgun that bullets was set at 5 or better, then utility the Commission to find will require an outlay confor handguns are a hazardous siderably higher than was spent for companies stocks might be bid at the original piece of equipment. least at book value. If we are not substance, under the Hazardous This higher cost, of course, is a ready to permit the electric utilities Substances Act of 1960, and to what are the thereby ban the sale of bullets for to earn 15 result of inflation. Thus, the comIt appears almost handguns. pany appears to be making a much alternatives? The petition by the committee larger profit than it actually is and certain that local, state and federal Comit must pay a large income tax on governments cannot afford to buy was originally denied by the 1974 on these spurious profits that it would all of the utilities because they mission on September 5, could not afford to handle the debt the grounds that such a ruling went not have to pay, if depreciation itself or the servicing of such debt. beyond the intent of Congress in truly represented a replacement Also, where would they get the 650 establishing the Commission. The cost of depreciable items. this The above conditions being billion dollars that is needed for the Chicago group then appealed decision and a District of Columtrue, the stocks of electric utility new construction projected over bia Federal court ordered the companies must be discounted in the next 5 years? Quoting Loomis 19. the market place, because the sale again, there is, in fact, no evidence Commission on December of such stocks is really a dilution of indicating that public power would 1974 to commence consideration benefit consumers as a whole. In of the Committees proposal, the value of stocks already outstanand to solicit information on ding. This can only be a losing truth, the main effect of public which to base a ruling as to whether proposition. power is to obscure costs-i.e- .. is a 6S0 BILLION DOLLARS because public utilities finance handgun ammunition 'hazardous substance'. Whereas growth of the inwith bonds that are I have written to the dustry for the past IS years has and escape certain taxes that the Chairman of the Commission and been at a rate of 7.4. the private utilities pay. they charge Technical Advisory Committee on consumers less than the full cost of take issue with the interpretation of Finance of the Federal Power the product." The answer lies in the Hazardous Substances Act. and I strongly believe such a ruling Commission has projected a stopping the inflation. moderate grow th of about 6 for In concluding, the article's would indeed exceed the authority the next IS years. Thechairmanof contention is that en- granted the Commission by the the Technical Advisory Committee vironmentalists, regulators and Congress. 1 have received hundreds of on Finance is Gordon R. Corey, government sponsored inflation are perhaps causing the doom of letters from my State of Wyoming of Commonwealth expressing outrage with the Edison. To return to the article. public electric utilities in this counIn no way does handgun Coreys committee concludes that try. In his final sentence Loomis proposal. ammunition constitute in itself, a 6 growth over the next 15 years says, what the utilities need most is a respite from inflation. We have hazardous substance; and when will require the industry, public used with reasonable and sensible and private systems combined, long known an end to inflation is safety precautions does not somehow to muster 650 billion essential to the country' dollars for construction! It is and now that lesson is being constitute a menace to anyone. This is but a blatant back door relearned in a very specific way. interesting to note that this is more attempt at gun control regulation. A man owes it to himself to All that I am or ever hope to Gun control is the business of the become successful. Once success- be I owe to the Congress and not of a committee of government. ful, he owes it to the Internal Worshiper of the Welfare State but a few people. Revenue Service. I am therefore, introducing which would legislation today We Discriminate! prohibit the Consumer Product We Sell to Conservatives Only! Safety Commission from issuing any ruling or restriction on the manufacture or sale of firearms, or firearm ammunition, in order to make clear the intent of the QUALITY ADVERTISING SPECIALTIES Congress in this respect, with BOOKMATCHES, CALENDARS, PENS, regard to the role of the ComBUSINESS PRINTING, BUTTONS, BUMPER 5TICKER5 mission. and to place the res7DDO OTHER ITEMS for gun control ponsibility Free Lists. Dept. Lit legislation where it belongs, here in ROAD JEFFERSON MICHIGAN CLARKLAKE, 4940 49234 this body. ut 1 1 Vice-Charim- Lombard Financial times London by C. Gordon Tether 1 tax-exem- pt an well-bein- g, V Hayes Ganiard Enterprises AT LISTEN TO LARRY for WILCOX Hr NEWS & VIEWS Stand FORT KNOX GOLD PLOT THICKENS Conlinurd from page 8 inflation has caused the cost of capital items and operations of utilities to go extremely high. In addition inflation causes a false depreciation figure to be used when A When William Saflre, New York Times columnist, nominated the great gold robbery" as one of the years four potential top news stories in a 1975 horoscope, he was not thinking in terms of a mammoth American bullion raid in the tradition of our own Great Train The sensation to Robbery. which he was alluding would stem if it ever were to break from what has come to be known as the Fort Knox gold mystery. And its domestic and international reverberations would be such, according to one American newspaper that has taken a special interest in the matter, that it could well come to be rated as the financial scandal of the century. When Dr. Peter Beter, former counsel to the U.S. Export-Impo- rt Bank, made the astonishing allegation in the middle of last year that the considerable part of the American gold stock held in Fort Knox had been largely spirited away, no one took him very seriously. It is probably true to say that not many do so even now. But what is apparent is that there is an increasing willingness to concede that there may well be something in what he says. SUSPICION How is one to explain that growth of the suspicion that there really is a discrepancy and one of potentially worrying size between the published statistics for American gold stocks and the physical reality? It seems, to The disclosure that four-fiftof the gold in Fort Knox is of inferior quality in the sense that being coin metal" it is not of good delivery for international settlement purposes, caused a imunfortunate particularly And this was compression. a pounded month or so later when the Treasury Secretary, in an effort to explain why the supplies needed for the January auction had to be hs from the Exchange Stabilization Fund's meagre stock, appeared to be saying that there is no good delivery gold at all in Fort Knox. taken All this has naturally encouraged those who maintain that Washington has something to hide to press home the attack. And they have been furnished with ader ditional by the curious it mildly in which way to put the U.S. authorities have behaved in relation to the gold stock audit which the General Accounting Offire-pow- fice, an arm of the U.S. Government responsible to Congress, was asked to undertake after some Congressmen had indicated that their suspicions had not been set to rest by the officially conducted tour of Fort Knox. For one thing, the speed at which the operation was completed was such as to provide grounds for the charge that it could not have been of the deep-probicharacter be would that required to provide ng for an accurate assessment of the truth about Fort Knox. For another, although the Director of the Gold and Silver the basis Operations Office announced as begin with, that the U.S. Treasurys far back as December 1 that the decision to take a party of GAO audit had been completed Congressmen and journalists to and would be published in visit Fort Knox in the autumn of January, it has still failed to 1974, in the hope of disposing of surface. the Beter charges, turned out to be counter-productiv- e. CONSEQUENCES It is not only that it had the Close observers of the Fort effect of generating a lot more Knox mystery assure me that questions than it answered. It is this so far unexplained official also that the subsequent efforts of procrastination, read in consuch seekers after the Fort Knox junction with other circumstantial truth as Congressmen Robinson evidence, strongly suggests that it is and Crane and Mr. Edward no longer a question of whether Durrell. the industrialist, to get the there is a discrepancy between the Administration to come clean, and the physical reality but figures information new about produced what the size of the gap is. the quality of the American gold It is hardly necessary to point stock that was not exactly helpful out that, if it does become apparent to the official contention that all that the T reasury has itself been the was as it should be. seat of a scandal of Watergate-typ- e For its implications were that, proportions, the consequences for at best. Washington was so con- America in general and her dollar fused about the extent and fineness in particular could be very serious. of the official holdings that it The puzzling thing is why the Adcouldn't make its figures add up in ministration is not hastening to several important senses and. at demonstrate that there is no cause worst, was guilty of deliberately for concern if it is in a position to deceiving the public. do so. 1 from THE RIGHT (Not The Wrong!) SIDE MON DA Y KLAT FRIDA Y from 1:00 PM There is nothing so powerful as truth and often nothing so strange. 3:30 PM -- Daniel TALK RADIO DIAL 1600 To Converse Call 292-722- 4 BEST of Talk Rebroadcast Evenings and Saturdays GOVERNMENTS Hr Webster NO HELP In order to solve more and more of our problems, our government has gotten bigger and bigger, so how come were getting more and more problems and our problems are getting bigger? Could it be that after all, government cannot solve our problems for us? -- J. Kesner Kahn |