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To: Frank Pembleton who wrote (91645)	6/20/2001 9:03:28 AM
From: Frank Pembleton	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 95453

Fact and Comment Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 06.11.01, 12:00 AM ET SCOOP! The energy crisis will soon be over. The bush administration has made some sensible proposals to remove roadblocks to creating and distributing energy in America, particularly vis-à-vis building new power lines and modernizing and constructing new refineries. The high market prices are already doing the bulk of the job. New electricity capacity should expand mightily in the next two years. By the next presidential election in 2004, there should be a glut of electricity. And natural gas exploration is exploding. Conservation? We've been conserving. Since the first energy crisis in the mid-1970s, America's economic output has more than doubled, yet energy consumption has expanded by less than a third. It wasn't so long ago that pilot lights on stoves and furnaces consumed 40% of household natural gas; today the pilot light is almost a museum piece. Conservation is not so much about sweltering in the summer and going cold in the winter as it is about making our cars and electrical conveniences more energy-efficient. The typical refrigerator today uses about one-third the energy its counterpart did in 1972. But what the Bush Administration's critics don't like to acknowledge is that when devices become energy-efficient, we use them even more. Conservation in and of itself, of course, is not the answer. California has religiously advocated using less electricity and has promoted alternative energy sources, such as windmills. The Golden State ranks 47th in per capita energy consumption. Yet California's electricity crisis reminds us daily that we also need increased supply. In essence, the President's efforts will prevent California-like crises for the rest of the nation. The Administration should immediately do two things to deal with the high price of gasoline: suspend the federal gas tax--18.4 cents per gallon--for six months; suspend the convoluted rules for refining gasoline, which during the summer add around 40 cents per gallon for motorists in the Midwest. Those measures would take away any immediate political heat this summer. And when the suspensions ended, the free market would already be meeting our energy needs at affordable prices.