SNAKE OIL SALESMEN
                             By Werner Meyer
                                    
                [Extract from POLICY REVIEW, Summer 1986]

"Even  with  decontrol of oil prices, we can see  a  30  percent  to  40
percent decline in domestic oil production."
   Daniel Yergin
   Sierra
   July/August 1979

"All  available  evidence points to a serious risk of a  serious  energy
crisis  in the middle or late 1980s ... Putting it simply, there is  the
very great likelihood of a major world depression."
   Ulf Lantzke
   Executive Director, International Energy Agency
   The New Republic
   Februrary 25, 1978

"We're heading into a world of considerably higher prices. There will be
a  major impact on housing by 1983, and I'd be surprised if gasoline  is
less than $2 per gallon plus whatever inflation adds."
   Kenneth Arrow
   Professor of Economics, Stanford University
   Forbes
   February 4, 1980

"It's  obvious  that gasoline could reach at least  $2  a  gallon  after
decontrol."
   Representative John Dingell (D-MI)
   Chairman, Subcommittee on Energy and Power
   Forbes
   December 10, 1979

"Irreversible physical shortfalls in supplies may take place as early as
1988.   [The result] is likely to push market prices to levels three  or
four times the current one."
   Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani
   Saudi Arabian Oil Minister
   New York Times
   June 21, 1979

"World  oil prices have only one way to go in the next decade  -up,  and
probably sharply so."
   John Mattill
   Editor, Technology Review
   December/January 1980

"It  would be prudent for any American contemplating the purchase  of  a
new  car to assume that gas will cost $2 per gallon with a few years and
$3 per gallon during the vehicle's lifetime."
   Lester Brown
   Worldwatch Institute
   Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
   March 1980

"During 1980 and 1981, for each barrel of oil newly produced as a result
of decontrol, the cost to the U.S. economy could range from at least $56
per  barrel  under the most optimistic assumptions, to  about  $870  per
barrel  under  assumptions which many experts believe are realistic  ...
Thus  even  if decontrol does in fact stimulate a few extra  barrels  of
oil, the total cost to the economy of those few barrels is so high as to
make decontrol the most nonsensical, irresponsible, and expensive energy
supply strategy imaginable."
   Energy Action
   March 24, 1979

"Ronald   Reagan  brushed  aside  energy  issues  during  the  campaign,
insisting  the  shortages  could  be  overcome  by  unleashing   private
enterprise.  But  not  even his most fervent supporters  in  the  energy
business  share  that optimism. Virtually all private forecasts  predict
declining domestic oil production and liquid fuel shortages in the  next
decade."
   New York Times
   November 14, 1980

"There is a dwindling supply of energy sources.  The prices are going to
rise  in  the  future no matter who is President, no matter which  party
occupies the administration in Washington, no matter what we do."''
   President Jimmy Carter
   March 31, 1979

"A  government  role is crucial if the United States is  to  reduce  its
energy  vulnerability ... At present rates of exploitation,  the  United
States will exhaust its own petroleum reserves in about 10 years ... The
only long-term solution to the liquid fuel problem is the production  of
substitutes."
   Alan Madian
   Foreign Policy
   Summer 1979

"[Because  of  decontrol,] the administration has  placed  the  American
economy, competition in the oil industry, and the public at the mercy of
a handful of international oil companies and OPEC."
   Ed Rothschild
   Director, Energy Action
   January 5, 1980

"Decontrol   would  cause  a  political  storm  because   prices   would
immediately rise. Some experts warn that gasoline prices would  soar  to
$2 a gallon."
   Marshall Loeb
   Time
   July 9, 1979

"Any surplus production capacity that individual OPEC countries may have
developed in recent years will almost certainly vanish by the mid-1980s,
perhaps  sooner  ... In 1990 prices, adjusted for future inflation,  oil
could be selling for $42 to $55 a barrel."
   U.S. Department of Energy
   National Energy Plan II
   May 1979

"The day when a tankful of gasoline costs $50 is probably not far off."
   Lester Brown
   Worldwatch Institute
   Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
   March 1980

"The  present  oil shortage looks like the start of a long siege.  While
the  demand  for  oil  keeps growing as world population  and  economies
expand,  supply slows and it is difficult to see where large amounts  of
additional oil will come from in the next several years."
   Leonard Silk
   New York Times
   June 29, 1979

"It  is  obvious to anyone that looks at it [the oil crisis] that  we've
got  a problem that's serious now. It's going to get more serious in the
future.  We're going to have less oil; we're going to have to  pay  more
for  it. Those are the facts. They are unpleasant facts. And so far, the
American people ... have refused to accept that simple fact."
   President Jimmy Carter
   May 25, 1979

"An  already serious energy problem has now become an energy  emergency,
an emergency that will persist throughout the entire 1980s."
   Robert Strobaugh and Daniel Yergin
   Foreign Affairs
   Vol. 58, no. 3
   1979

"Mr.  President, I believe we will see $1.50 gas this spring, and  maybe
before.  And  it  is just a matter of time until the oil  companies  and
their  associates, the OPEC nations, will be driving the  gasoline  pump
prices up to $2 a gallon."
   Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH)
   January 29, 1981

"Estimating $1.50 [per gallon of gas] is totally, totally optimistic."
   Dan Lundberg
   Gasoline price specialist
   New York Times
   February 27, 1980

"One  thing is for certain: prices will continue to rise. We're  dealing
with  a  scarce,  finite commodity, one that will be running  out  in  a
couple  of  decades.  Traditional criteria of supply  and  demand  don't
apply."
   Charles W. Duncan
   Secretary of Energy
   U.S. News and World Report
   February 25, 1980

"We're going to be on the ragged edge for years."
   Clifton C. Garvin, Jr.
   Chairman, Exxon Corp.
   Business Week
   December 24, 1979

"With oil, surprises or changes can only go one way: against us."
   Paul Frankel
   Petroleum Economics, Ltd.
   Dun's Review
   April 1980

"The price of oil now seems firmly locked into a steep upward spiral for
the foreseeable future."
   Business Week
   December 31, 1979

"At  present  rates of consumption, America's oil and gas will  be  gone
within a decade."
   Newsweek
   July 16, 1979

"Without rationing, gasoline will soon go to $3 a gallon."
   Senator Dale Bumpers (D-AR)
   U.S. News and World Report
   July 9, 1979

"In moving towards 1990, the industrialized countries will be walking an
`oil tightrope.'"
   International Energy Agency
   Energy Conservation
   1981

"Because  of this estimated decline in future oil production,  estimated
oil  imports  in 1985 have risen from 6 [million] to 11 million  barrels
per day."
   Daniel White
   Professor of Finance, Georgia State University
   Business
   May/June 1979

"A  conservative assessment would project the non-Communist world's  oil
consumption as likely to advance from 51 million barrels daily  in  1977
to 62 million per day in 1985."
   Walter J. Levy
   Oil consultant
   New York Times
   January 4, 1979

"Most  industry observers, however, believe that this time OPEC will  be
successful in keeping oil prices from falling."
   Business Week
   December 31, 1979

"America's  oil  system  must be nationalized as  are  those  of  Libya,
Nigeria, Mexico, and Venezuela. Since there is no free market in oil, it
is  idle  to pretend otherwise. There is no way a nationalized  industry
can damage or endanger us more than the present monopolistic structure."
   Glyn Jones
   New York Times
   October 2, 1979

"Almost  inevitably, therefore, OPEC's management  of  the  world's  oil
supply will keep the world economy teetering on the brink of recession."
   Business Week
   October 29, 1979

"Responses  that  might have been sufficient between 1974  and  1979  no
longer  suffice;  today the United States and all the world's  importers
are caught in an accute and lasting energy emergency."
   Robert Stobaugh and Daniel Yergin
   Foreign Affairs
   Vol. 58, no. 3
   1979

"The  tragic  failure of U.S. energy planning is that  it  has  doggedly
promulgated futile market-oriented solutions to energy problems."
   Carter Henderson
   Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
   December 1978

"Rationing is the fairest and most certain way to deal immediately  with
this country's oil shortage."
   Senator Dale Bumpers (D-AR)
   U.S. News and World Report
   July 9, 1979

"We must adopt a system of gasoline rationing without delay ... in a way
that demands a fair sacrifice from all Americans."
   Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
   New York Times
   January 28, 1980

"I  believe  that decontrol as a cure will prove to be  worse  than  the
disease of oil addiction."
   Representative Edward Markey (D-MA)
   New York Times
   January 9, 1981

"The price mechanism must be supplemented ... by governmental action and
guidelines encouraging or requiring conservation of oil ...  It  is  not
sufficient to rely exclusively on the price mechanism."
   Richard N. Cooper
   Undersecretary for Economic Affairs
   Department of State Bulletin
   December 1980

"A  Democratic energy policy must oppose the decontrol of  gas  and  oil
prices."
   Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
   New York Times
   June 26, 1980

"Last  week  President Reagan issued an Executive  Order  lifting  price
controls on domestic oil and gasoline ... Energy prices in Massachusetts
alone  will  escalate by 33 percent -- the average household  paying  as
much to heat itself as it does in Government taxes."
   Representative Nick Mavroules (D-MA)
   February 5, 1981

"I  think  it [OPEC] has now become such an institutionalized  structure
that it would be very doubtful that anyone could break it down."
   President Jimmy Carter
   New York Times
   February 11, 1979