One Man Anti-Oil Lobby

A gallon of gasoline today costs 29% more than it did a year ago, and a gallon of heating oil 64% more. Despite the imminent lifting of the Arab embargo, the prices are certain to stay high; gasoline prices might even go a bit higher. The Federal Energy Office's officials believe that the increases will alleviate the energy shortage in two ways. They give U.S. oil companies a greater incentive to explore for more oil and gas at home; and they encourage American consumers to conserve energy.

Though these policies might sound reasonable, they infuriate Lee White, 50, a balding, wiry Washington, D.C., lawyer who was chairman of the Federal Power Commission from 1966 to 1969. "As prices go up, the little guy is going to get gouged," says White. "Is that the way to solve the energy crisis--to tell the little guy that he can't drive any more? I believe the Government has an obligation to protect him."

A little guy himself (5 ft. 7 in.), White has turned himself into a one-man anti-oil lobby to press such views on Congress and administrative agencies. He now spends less time at his private law practice than as head of the Consumer Federation of America's "energy-policy task force," representing the interests of 22 consumer-oriented groups. His total budget may reach $85,000 a year--a pittance beside the American Petroleum Institute's $16.7 million for 1974. "If it's a David v. Goliath situation," he says, "spell David with a small d."

Real Outrage. White's main weapon--something less than a slingshot--is what he calls "the public's healthy attitude of skepticism" about the energy crisis. "The consumer is showing real outrage over the fact that oil companies' profits can skyrocket, while the Administration allows the price of 'old oil' to rise $1 per bbl. [to $5.25]," he says. "Since there is no retroactive expense in pumping from wells already producing, the increase is just a Christmas present from the Administration to the oil companies."

White is lobbying hard for a bill, introduced by Senators Warren Magnuson and Adlai Stevenson III, to establish a national oil company to compete with private producers. This proposed federal corporation would explore and drill for oil and gas on public lands. The price of its output would be strictly related to the cost of production, and so is supposed to serve as a yardstick by which to measure the profit margins of private companies. "The bill," White says, "has a chance, a bare chance, to pass."

Most observers give the bill even less chance, but give White high marks as a gadfly. No sooner does he finish testifying before a congressional committee than he rushes across the nation to exhort concerned citizen groups to let the Government know their interests in energy matters. So far, his tangible successes have been minor; most recently, for example, he helped to force the Federal Energy Office to publish its contingency plans for nationwide gas rationing. And last week Energy Chief William Simon created an Office of Consumer Affairs within FEO--but at a public meeting coupled that announcement with another rejection of White's insistent demand for a price rollback.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.