Commoner Says Oil Companies Caused U.S. Energy Shortage

"Our growing dependence on foreign oil is because of actions taken by the oil companies in their own self-interest," Barry Commoner, Citizen's Party candidate for president, said yesterday during a forum on energy at Northeastern University.

Oil companies should be turned into public utilities, Commoner said, adding that "people not company profits" should run the American economic system.

But Daniel Yergin, director of the International Energy Seminar at Harvard's Center for International Affairs and the other forum participant disagreed. Yergin, saying that although oil companies do make large profits, said attacking them diverts attention from the real cause of the energy crisis--the political and economic implications of the world's limited oil supply.

Commoner said that in the 1950s U.S. oil companies switched their emphasis from domestic to foreign oil discovery and production. By charging the same for both domestic and imported oil, the companies increased their profits tremendously, Commoner said, adding, "They used their capital to manipulate our dependency on oil."

Yergin said that the Iran-Iraq War "brought us back to reality" after Americans had regarded the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the loss of Iranian oil following the Shah's fall as separate events without future implications. American "may be on the edge tonight of a third oil shock" because the Iran-Iraq war might spread throughout the Middle East.

Aside from turning the oil companies into public utilities, Commoner said that he would look into renewable solar energy as a solution to shortage problems. He said that Brazil will begin relying on alcohol as a cheaper, low-pollution energy source within four years and that the U.S. could make the conversion from oil to alcohol even faster.

But alcohol is still in experimental stages, Yergin said, adding that although renewable sources are feasible in the long run, conservation should be the main new source of energy now. Citing the Boston-based Gillette Company's 30-per-cent reduction of energy, Yergin said that the United States could use 30- to 40-per-cent less energy without sacrificing its present standard of living.