| Show i Voice of f business s Nationalize the power companies By Arch Booth president of or orthe the Chamber of Commerce of or orthe the United States Its It's no nc news tf to most people that Ute lie nations nation's electric utilities are having big problems The price of Imported oil has soared natural gas is running low sulfur high coal cant can't be burned sulfur low coal cant can't be mined and the coal that is available is g getting more expensive fast Added to all allot of the above the nuclear power plants that were supposed to be helping out by now are far behind schedule For all of these reasons the cost of ot electricity has been going up steeply and the tempers of consumers have been keeping pace TIlE THE UTILITIES have not caused the bad news but it is their misfortune to be the bearer of it in the form of their monthly bills And some people are reacting much as did those ancient rulers who were inclined to behead a messenger bringing bad news Predictably demagogic politicians have seen in this situation an opportunity to enlarge their empires Cries are being heard for government takeovers of the electric utilities The presumption of course is that the government could do doa a more efficient job of providing power than the private companies TVA'S Troubles But could it The country's largest electric power system is isa isa isa a federal agency the Tennessee Valley Authority So before we start nationalizing the private electric industry it might be advisable to take a alook alook look at TV TVA A. A First TVA TV A priced its electricity low and encouraged electric all-electric homes a practice that environmentalists consider a waste of resources when a private company does it Consequently TVA serves more all electric all homes than Ulan any other electric utility Second TV TVA A let its vital coal reserves get dangerously low while it waited for the price to come down The price went up Now the agency is frantically scrambling to scrape up enough to see it through the winter And it doesn't look as if it'll make it TV TVA A HAS liAS already asked its biggest single customer The Atomic Energy Commission to accept a 50 percent power cut It was an offer the couldn't refuse TV TVA A also appealed to Its other customers to reduce power use by at lease 20 percent The result was a five percent reduction Now TV TVA A is talking about a mandatory five percent power reduction If H that isn't enough the next step will be to cut off business and industrial users After that will come rotating brownouts during which one- one third of an areas area's power will be cut on a rotating basis Comparatively Speaking Clearly run government-run utilities s are not immune either to management mistakes or to the effects of price increases in inthe Inthe inthe the fuel market Of or course the government does have the ability to use tax revenue to paper over the gap between income and outgo But that doesn't really save the consumer money money money-it it just takes it out of another pocket And government subsidies disguise the true cost of a product which invariably leads to wasteful and inefficient use of scarce resources Nationalize the power companies Well lets let's put it this way Would you want your electricity to be delivered by bythe bythe the theU U. U S. S Postal Service |
