Show 1 1 I. I Energy and our future By John Jolin E E. Swearingen Chairman of o othe the Board Standard Oil Company Indiana During the remainder of this century our country will have to rely mainly upon petroleum and to a lesser extent coal for its energy supply Those who are arc telling Americans Americans Ameri cans otherwise arc are engaging in deceit and distortion and diverting divert ing the publics public's attention away from the critical choices that must bo be made I We as a nation must face up to the fact that we have only two energy alternatives for the near term we One can hope to achieve a reasonable stability in inthe inthe inthe the Middle East and Africa that will allow us to import all the oil we need accepting the inherent risks and costs that this would entail However the United States already is dependent upon foreign foreign foreign for for- eign sources for more than 40 per cent of its petroleum and this dependency has grown significantly significantly significantly sig sig- sig- sig since the 1973 Arab embargo It Jt is almost a certainty that sometime within the next 10 to 15 years the United States will find itself facing lacing another oil cut cutt off oft Another embargo when it comes will bring far more serious seri sent Otis ous consequences because we are relying on foreign oil for lor a larger portion of our supply and because because be cause the to easy measures have already been adopted The other other and and realistic realistic realistic-al al alternative is to encourage all out domestic exploration for new conventional oil and gas supplies and to greatly expand production and use of domestic coal Legislation to achieve greater energy sufficiency self-sufficiency by removing removing ing price controls and allowing capital accumulation and economic economic eco incentives to pay the enormous enormous enor enor- costs of this effort must have top priority Such actions as breaking up oil companies or creating a tax exempt and subsidized Federal Oil and Gas Corporation are proposals that would become problems in themselves and at enormous costs in terms of dollars dollars dol dol- lars and jobs to the American economy Private industry can anticipate and satisfy the nations nation's energy requirements if government will remove the impediments and let letus letus letus us get on with the job of developing developing developing de de- de- de our available petroleum and coal supplies The American public should refuse to be taken in by the poli poll politics tics of limitation and despair and refuse to adopt the kind of bureaucratic enterprises and governmental governmental gov structures that will only limit us more We Wo cannot possibly know now exactly where our energy for lor the next century will come from any anymore anymore anymore more than Malthusian thinkers of the Century knew how we could possibly feed teed the billions of people we no now feed But we know from our experience experience ex as a nation in the last Jast years that so long as there is freedom for individuals and companies companies com com- to exercise their incentives and creative talents our system of private enterprise is the one best equipped to meet the energy challenges we face lace |