House committee votes new gas price ceiling President Carter late last week won a key victory for his energy program. The House Committee on Interstate & Foreign Commerce reversed a subcommittee decision to totally deregulate the price of new natural gas. Instead, the full committee, on a 22-to-21 vote, accepted Carter's pro posal for a new price ceiling of $1.75 per million cu ft for new natural gas in both the interstate and, previously unregulated, intrastate markets. The present ceiling on interstate natural gas is $1.45 per million cu ft. Carter's victory, however, is by no means final. The deregulation ques tion probably will be subject to an other committee vote and still must be approved by the ad hoc Committee on Energy set up to coordinate the work of the three committees working on the energy program—Interstate & Foreign Commerce; Banking, Cur rency & Housing; and Ways & Means. Then it must pass the House and win Senate approval. The full committee also reversed another controversial committee de cision to impose mandatory federal insulation standards on homes. Under the subcommittee's plan, federally financed loans would not have been available after 1985 at the latest for purchase of homes that did not meet the insulation standards. The committee's action brings its bill in line with an insulation bill already approved by the House Committee on Banking, Currency & Housing. With the deregulation and insula tion votes out of the way, at least for now, the committee will take up less controversial provisions of the sub committee's bill, many of which are expected to emerge intact. These in clude, for example, a provision that would order the Federal Power Commission, if gas is curtailed, to give priority to agricultural uses of natural gas right after residential heating. Under the subcommittee bill, any new utility plant would be barred from burning oil or gas. New indus trial boilers also would not be allowed to burn oil or gas, but exemption could be granted on a case-by-case basis. Utilities would have to prove that no alternate fuels are available. A new plant is defined as one on which construction had not begun by April 20. Existing utility plants would be rohibited from burning natural gas y 1990. Oil still could be burned, but the hope is that tax penalties imposed by the Ways & Means Committee would force a switch there, too. The Federal Energy Administration also
E
could prohibit other major fuel burhing installations from using oil or natural gas if that installation had the technical capability on or before April 20 to use coal or other fuels and it is financially feasible to do so. Exemp tions are provided for use of synthetic gas derived from coal. In making any switch to coal, utilities and industries could still be required to install best available control technology to con trol emissions. α
NRC assesses value of EPA regulations The Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory programs gen erally aren't an intolerable drag on the U.S. economy, the latest in a se ries of reports on the agency con cludes. But there is room for im provement in some of EPA's pro grams, nevertheless, says a panel of independent experts. Released last week, the sixth of 11 reports expected from a committee of the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council (NRC) estimates the total cost to the econo my of federal environmental regula tions at about 1 to 2% of the gross national product (GNP). In 1974 dollars that would be about $14 bil lion to $30 billion of 1975's GNP of $1400 billion. This trend is expected to hold through 1984, when the cost of ollution control likely will rise to $20 illion to $40 billion, again about 1 to 2% of an estimated GNP of $1900 billion. Yet the report questions the cost effectiveness of some of the agency's programs, and it notes that "current regulations often provide disincen tives to develop new pollution control technologies and achieve better per formance." The NRC committee prefers a system of incentives for in dustry to improve pollution control continually, even beyond the goal of meeting existing standards. For ex ample, NRC suggests two possible approaches. One is a system of emis sion fees that firms would pay for exceeding pollution standards, rather than simply paying fines. The other is an "emissions budget auction" where competing firms would bid for shares of the pollution "budget" of a particular region. NRC cites offshore oil and gas production as "a good example of a situation in which better balance should be established between con siderations involving the economy, energy, and the environment." The current regulatory policy, the report claims, is motivated more by tech nology than by environmental ne-
E
Offshore oil and gas production cited as an example of too much regulation
cessity, and "the regulations are generally not cost effective or even necessary." It adds, "there is little evidence to justify zero-discharge technology except for particularly susceptible areas near the shore line." The current series of reports is the result of House hearings in 1973 on EPA regulatory practices. Earlier reports by NRC have analyzed how EPA makes decisions and on the state of R&D at the agency. D
Minority engineering enrollments rising In an update report drawing on a number of sources, the Engineering Manpower Commission of the Engi neers Joint Council in New York City finds an encouraging pattern of progress from the widespread cam paign to rectify the historically small representation of minorities in engi neering professions. The commission finds that, by 1976, the proportion of various minorities in engineering en rollments at schools was moving fast toward the proportion of these minorities in the general U.S. popu lation. First pointing out the problem in volved, the commission estimates that, for example, blacks make up just 1.1% of all engineers compared with 11.1% of the U.S. population by the latest census. For Hispanics, the corresponding percentages in engi neering and the general population are 1.8% and 4.4%. For American In dians, the figures are 0.05% and 0.4%. July 4, 1977 C&EN 5
