Show A new ball game It has been observed that when Congress climbed on the environmental bandwagon in 1970 and passed special legislation to clean the air and protect the environment no one cared what it would cost of how much energy it would take to carry out the provisions of the new laws There is no way to pin down the exact costs now but estimates run ron as high as 40 to 50 billion a year As inflation rises and fuel costs soar the price will go up rapidly For example it is pointed out that auto emission control research and development may cost 2 billion a year and result in the consumption of an extra 5 billion gallons of gasoline which would cost between 2 and 3 billion annually This did not matter when there was plenty of gasoline at a alow alow alow low price price now now there is not There is a paper shortage but the paper industry is said to be putting 43 percent of new investment into pollution control rather than production facilities For the petroleum industry the figure is reported to be 10 percent Consider the cost in lost employment higher gher prices inconvenience and real hardship of such things as the long environmental delays in the construction of the trans-Alaska trans pipeline from Alaska and the construction of nuclear power plants or orthe orthe orthe the restrictions on the use of coal to generate electricity Both of the latter could have saved millions of gallons of oil If the environmental protection movement is to survive it will have to become more knowledgeable about the costs of its recommendations and the benefits likely to be derived from them Congress still operates on emotion If you do not think so consider the investigation of alleged excessive oil industry profits even while statistics show such profits to be lower than those of industry in general and insufficient to attract the capital needed to expand domestic exploration effort and production facilities Environmentalists will have to get in inline inline inline line for their fair share of available energy and they will have to justify the additional costs which they propose Otherwise political favor could turn just as sharply and suddenly against the environmentalist movement as it once impulsively embraced it |