David Thomas: “I want to expand a little bit on the question of energy policy. As I mentioned before, there certainly have been some…”

“I want to expand a little bit on the question of energy policy. As I mentioned before, there certainly have been some changes in the California situation. There have been some changes throughout the country in gas prices and other kinds of energy prices. They are not significant changes and, indeed, now we see them moving back again. The point we do not want to overlook is that when we had what we called an energy crisis 6 or 8 months ago, we had a problem; and the problem basically, of course, was that demand was growing but supply was not. We had a problem in terms of the amount of refining capacity in this country. It had not grown for a very long time. The same was true with electric generation. We overcame that problem largely, I suppose, because, among other things, winter was over and some of the refineries that had to make fuel oil for New England had changed their production. But the fact is, the problem is still there. We do need an energy policy. I urge that we do move forward. The President has put forth a policy--and much of it is incorporated in what has passed in the House--that I think makes a lot of sense. It includes conservation, having some opportunities for conservation in the usage of energy. There are many things we could do in that area. We can do it as individuals and we can do it as governments and still continue to be productive. Conservation should be part of our energy plan.”