Washington Connection; Energy

line. We have been accustomed to an overabundance of cheap energy. That day has ended. Let's change our lifestyles and be more thoughtful. Good evening, I'm Jim Lehrer. If you're a Cadillac dealer, a long-haul truck driver, or an unemployed airline pilot, or if you spend two hours in line at some gas station today,

our message tonight is particularly aimed at you, as well as the rest of us. It's simply that there may be a silver lining in the currently very dark clouds of the energy crisis, and the clouds do indeed hang heavy tonight, as we come to the close of the seventh day of increasing food shortages, school and factory closings, and layoffs of thousands of workers caused by a strike of independent truckers. The shooting death of one trucker in Delaware, the attempt to blow up a bridge in Pennsylvania, and other acts of violence are showing us the grim aside of the effects of the energy crisis. The shortage of gasoline has led Maryland, New Jersey, and Massachusetts to join Oregon and Hawaii in setting up their own rationing systems. The crunch is the worst on the east coast, where gas station lines are the longest and shortages most severe. The situation prompted Governor Sargent of Massachusetts to remark, in convenience, has disintegrated into chaos. The question, as yet unresolved, is whether or not we can all hang in there through this kind of grief to reap the possible benefits

that may be waiting at the other end of the energy crisis tunnel. And tonight, when things look worse than ever, is probably the most appropriate time to explore what good might come out of the current misery, inconvenience, and uncertainty. And as William Simon just said, it all has to do with lifestyle, and as so often true, many of the decisions involved in shaping our future lifestyles will be made right here in Washington. We're going to explore both the concrete and the aesthetic aspects of the silver lining tonight, through the wisdom of former Interior Secretary Stuart Udall, the reporting of impact correspondent Peter Kay, and beginning now with a satirical humor of columnist Art Hoppy. The nation's energy crisis was finally resolved by the simple expedient of turning down the heat. But before that happy day, numerous desperate measures were tried and found wanting.

One of the first was reducing the national speed limit to 28.3 miles per hour. While let's conserve gasoline by the tanker's full, it unfortunately resulted in the country's mental hospitals quickly overflowing. As the crisis worsened, the president's decision to turn off outdoor lighting was inevitably followed by the president's decision to turn off indoor lighting. But there were drawbacks to a darkened nation. Not only did the crime rate increase, which people were used to, but the birth rate saw it. This was attributed not to the absence of light, but to the absence of television. Without television, most American couples simply couldn't think of anything else to do. The trouble with this country grumbled the president is that the people have too damn much energy. Yet it was this second energy crisis that led to the most ingenious solution of all, the national football and pornography network. We have found, said the president happily, that the number of people driving cars, reading under bright lights, or otherwise wasting energy is dramatically reduced during Monday night football telecasts.

We are therefore going to bring Americans what they have long dreamed of. Football from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily. As for the pornography, the president said he was regretfully throwing that in for, quote, those perverts who don't like football. Initially, there were problems. Because the federal network offered no commercials, several middle-aged men were found in front of their sets start to death. This was solved by introducing presidential appeals to save energy every half hour. With no one on the streets from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m., the energy crisis appeared over. But after 6 days, the most ardent pervert lost a zest for pornography. And in a month, the seemingly impossible happened. Interest in football waned. The heat was now on the president to do something.

And the immortal words of Harry Truman said the president thoughtfully, if you can't stand the heat, turn down the thermostat. Eureka, he suddenly cried. That's it. A plan that will not only save some of our energy this winter, but a plan that will save all of our energy this winter. So it was that the president required all Americans to turn down their thermostats by another two degrees. The following week, he demanded another two degrees. The week after that, well, the energy crisis was at last resolved. Every American, beset by problems, happily went into hibernation. Now that's one man's view of things. Now to a more serious look by Peter K. at one very real consequence of what lies ahead. If this nation, as Art Hoppe suggests, were to go into hibernation, there would be no more likely shelter than the caves of Manhattan.

Yet these towers of glass and steel are among the most flagrant energy wasteers in the whole country. The mammoth world trade center, for example, uses about 100,000 kilowatts a day for heating, lighting, and cooling. That's enough energy to supply a city the size of Amarillo, Texas, Las Vegas, Nevada, or Scranton, Pennsylvania. These twin towers aren't complete yet, but already steps are being taken to curb their huge appetite for energy. After the lighting was completed, switches had to be installed so portions of offices could be darkened without cutting off lights for an entire floor. About 32,000 fluorescent tubes were removed from lighting fixtures. Corridor and lobby lighting has been reduced, and the entire heating system is being shut down six hours earlier than usual every night.

But there are some things that cannot be changed. No storage of heating or cooling, poorly planned lighting systems, indiscriminate use of glass with its high heat loss, and extensive use of aluminum, which requires seven times as much energy for production as does steel. The world trade center is the biggest, but it is not the only example of poor energy planning. But the energy crisis may make this dinosaur the last of its breed. The new look in buildings is the work of such man as Fred Dubin, a consulting engineer and advisor to the federal government on energy planning. Through design, through thoughtful design, analyses, we can probably save 30 to 50 percent of the energy that we use in commercial and residential buildings. We have to look at two phases. One is the energy consumed in existing buildings, which of course is what we're facing and we'll be facing for many, many years, and then energy that will be consumed in new buildings, which will show up some years down the line.

So we've got two major approaches. The average building day is built with a shear wall and indiscriminate use of glass, single glazing normally, which has a high heat loss in the wintertime, especially in the northern climates. The building should be responsive to its environment. It ought to shed the sun when it doesn't want it, when it's excessive, and it ought to let it come in in the wintertime to aid in heating when it's needed. If this is a south facade of a building, without any exterior sun control, there may have Venetian blinds inside, but once the sun gets that far, it's too late. Instead of that, we could put horizontal fins, which can be fixed or can be movable, so that it blocks out the summer sun, but lets the low rays come in the winter to assist in heating on the south side. Now, on the east or west side, where the angles are different, it takes a different type of solar control to be affected. This facade has no exterior solar control. These show a possible arrangement of vertical fins to prevent the sun rays from coming in in the summertime.

For many years, Dubin preached the energy gospel in the wilderness, but now his ideas are being put into practice. His firm is consultant to the General Services Administration on a seven-story office building to be constructed in Manchester, New Hampshire. The building will look like a block house, almost windowless and heavily insulated on the cold north side. Inside, areas will be lit selectively, and heating systems will be designed so that the flow, rather than the temperature of air, will be controlled. The lessons learned in this design will have a very definite connection to the buildings where you may live, work, shop, and play. Perhaps one of the most exciting features here are the solar collectors that will be installed on the roof. The solar collectors will be used to supplement the fuel used for heating and for air conditioning and for domestic hot water. These innovations will cut energy used by 58% in the Manchester building, and already the project is attracting attention from other governmental agencies and from the private sector.

This building is only a start. There are a number of other things to be learned about buildings in different climates, and before we're through, we must have a number of demonstration buildings that will uncover the relationships that we're able to do in this building. Do you see both professional and general opportunities in this present crisis? Well, Peter, there certainly will be some dislocations and hardships that we do have some tremendous opportunities. I think we'll learn ways to save petrochemicals for perhaps a higher and better use than for combustion. We don't get the most efficiency by combusting or burning oil and gas. It'll stimulate alternative sources. It's been already a tremendous interest in growth of solar energy applications, which is a clean, non-pluting source. It has a great implication, I think, on new community design, the form of a new community. I think for the first time, we'll probably realize where our waste is. Zero in on what we're wasting, and we look at our priorities, what is important, and what can be done without.

The Chinese use two brush symbols for the word crisis. One means danger, and the other means opportunity. And that symbolic concept certainly applies to the energy crisis. The way we construct new buildings, as we just saw, is just one of the many very real opportunities on the horizon. What about our health, for instance? More walking, more bike riding could accidentally reduce the incidence of heart disease. Our nation's number one killer, above and beyond that, a little exercise might make us all just feel better. Slowest speeds and fewer cars have already cut down the number of automobile accidents, and who knows this could eventually result in a reduction of auto insurance costs. Park and recreation land should become more precious, and the automatic decision to cut off part of your front yard or your neighborhood school to widen a road or build a new freeway may become less automatic. Part of an overall new conservation ethic, conserving our natural as well as our unnatural resources, and most importantly, replacing the well-known American waste ethic.

And leading hopefully also to the realization on the part of American industry that there is not an unlimited supply of energy out there in Wonderland. They might even quit manufacturing products with building obsolescence, the theory that will make the electric razor, so we'll wear out in three years, so the customer will have to buy another one. Well, there just may not be enough energy anymore to make new razors, refrigerators, toasters, TV sets, and washing machines for everybody every three years or so. At any rate, the potential peaks and the valley of the energy crisis are many, and you can make up your own list as well as I can. Let's zero in now on one of the major areas, which the decision makers of Washington are already doing something about transportation. It was emphasized in President Nixon's recent state of the Union and budget messages, and Peter K tells how the government is changing its emphasis on how we should get from place to place. America expands one quarter of its total energy on transportation. In many believe that's a lot of wasted motion.

The most spectacular fuel burners are the giant jets, but the largest amount of energy is consumed by the common car, which uses more than all other forms of transportation combined. Since World War II, Washington has aided and abetted this energy binge. Billions of dollars have been pumped into freeway and airport construction and planning, but today's energy crisis may change all this. Now the emphasis is shifting to buses, trains, and other forms of mass transit. And the Department of Transportation, according to Assistant Secretary Robert Binder, is promoting something new among motorists, togetherness. When everybody is affected by a shortage of fuel or a high price, then everyone is aware that they have to do something different, and it makes it a lot easier at the local scene for programs to be put into effect that change people's habits. What kind of program? Well, I think of our carpool program, and I know that that will affect me and others who are used to driving alone, because they argue either that their schedule is so infrequent they couldn't possibly find a match,

or they just want to be left alone when they drive. This is the pattern around the country. I think that technologically, the computer has given us a way of dealing with this problem. You know, it occurs to me as I sit here talking to you, a top official of a big cabinet department, that all you're talking about is something like carpooling. Now it seems to me with all the resources and all the people at your command, surely you can come up with something more exotic than that. I think your question reflects a mystique which has been a problem for us nationally, and has been devolved this department ever since it was created. The thought that if you have a problem, you can solve it by spending money on some glittering technological change. It's the Buck Rogers mystique that we all know about, and hope that if we just invent the new mass trap, it'll take care of all the mice. Now I don't mean to dismiss technological improvements.

I think that they are potentially very good, where we're working at it and our transportation system center in Cambridge and elsewhere. But those are long term programs. When you talk about technological programs, they tend to be relatively long term. What the energy crisis has suggested is we have to look at the short term, the immediately possible. The carpool program is one part of a low profile effort to stress existing mass transit possibilities. Other elements are aimed at improving bus transportation. The Federal Department of Transportation is subsidizing design of safer and more comfortable buses. It is pioneering such innovations as dialeride, whereby residents of the Philadelphia suburb of Head and Field New Jersey can call for a bus, much as they would telephone for a taxi. And a favorite federal project in recent years has been the allocation of funds to build bus lanes on freeways. The exclusive bus lane program was inaugurated a number of years ago in the department. We have a local example of the Shirley bus highway, which is very successful.

In the sense that when it started, the utilization was quite small, but now has been carrying more people in the rush hour than are traveling into the city by car. The urban mass transit administration was strengthened in this department. A billion dollars a year has been allocated to its programs for a number of years. Aiding cities in expanding their capital investment in buses and subways. What's happening now is an acceleration of those programs in our department. The Nixon administration believes in busing of commuters up to a point. It would allocate more money for local transit operators to buy buses. But it is reluctant to pick up operating deficits for transit systems. Underground, it's a far different story. Despite massive subway construction in Washington, D.C., and in the San Francisco Bay area, there is little enthusiasm for multi-million dollar commitments of federal money elsewhere. I don't believe that even the energy crisis can justify a great many more subways.

Our immediate program is to get better service out of our existing rail system. This is the report we sent to the Congress in which we continue to endorse. Is that for the immediate future we invest in the improvement of the road bet over which the Metroliner runs to get our speeds up on conventional steel-wheel trains. The Department of Transportation is putting its efforts into improving rail transportation where there is the biggest demand. In such areas is a heavily traveled corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston. Amtrak's high-speed Metroliner between Washington and New York is a most popular passenger train in America today. But it is way behind the French-built turbo train, which Amtrak describes in this promotional film. Amtrak went to France for its new trains because the French have unparalleled experience in building and operating the kind of trains that Amtrak needed. High-speed trains capable of running efficiently on existing road bids and available right now.

The RTG powered by two gas turbine engines of aircraft design. This five-car train of lightweight steel can carry almost 300 passengers at speeds up to 125 miles per hour. Through turbo trains, if they ever come, and improved service, Amtrak may provide an exciting alternative to the airliner. But it can do little if anything to relieve congestion within the cities and their suburbs. It is here that the energy crisis will provide the final test of whether Congress and the administration are willing to put their money where their mouths are, to divert funds from highways to railways, from automobiles to mass transit. The last year, 1973, was a significant year in that area in the sense that the administration proposed and the Congress accepted a broadening of the potential application of highway trust fund monies. We've been working for some time now on programs to improve transit operations in cities.

What we didn't have was the lever that would make the realization of these improvements politically possible. Frankly, I think the energy crisis has given many cities, the governors and the city councils of many cities, a lever, and what we're hoping to do is to persuade them that the time to use it is now. Secretary Bender's views are reflected in President Nixon's new budget, which calls for $350 million, more for buses and $150 million less for highways. But our hobby has yet another fable on how we might change our way of getting around. The fiendish scheme of the Arab countries to deprive America of its desperately needed oil had a drastic effect on the nation's culture and economy. By the spring of 1974, the government had no choice but to invoke a complete ban on private automobiles. The cultural shock to the country long described as a nation on wheels was staggering. Indeed, a few less stable members of the society failed to survive. Thus, soft, flabby Americans had no choice but to walk, roller skate, or bicycle to get where they were going.

In six months, they had lost a gross total of 1 million tons of gross total flat. Without smog, their eyes turned white and their lungs cleared. Without cars or status symbols, it was difficult to tell Rich from poor and a new democratic spirit swept the land. And in the quiet streets, the art of conversation flourished once again. The parking lots were turned into parks, parking garages, and a bowling alley. And by simply adding white lines, fences, and nets, the Pasadena Freeway was converted into 21,642 tennis courts, thus assuring local residents an average weight of only 27 minutes in order to play. Of course, the effects of the ban on the economy were enormous. Detroit converted to bicycle production, but owners of auto repair shops went bankrupt, which won them the sympathy of their immediate families, if no one else. On the other hand, every former motorist saved the good $100 a month on Kara Keeps, and the government saved billions on highway repairs and construction, making for tax cuts. With this giant leap in personal disposable income, the economy boomed.

So, America almost overnight became the land its founding fathers had dreamed of. A nation of lean, muscular, alert, clear-eyed, prosperous, democratic citizens. And now, a final, serious word about what the energy crisis could mean to us all. It comes from Stuart Udall, the former Secretary of Interior during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Now, it is about advocate of conservation. He spends a lot of time preaching his message to college and business groups. We talked to him last weekend, while he was chopping wood in the backyard of his home here in suburban Washington. I think that if we look at it as an opportunity to make basic changes in our lives, the way we live, that this can be not some kind of disaster, but one of the best things that happened to the country. This is a humanistic crisis in that it asks us what life is all about, what our own lives are all about, and what we should be doing. And it just seems to me, the more I look at this modern urban life, it's torn us apart.

The automobile has been a disaster, an absolute disaster. It's torn the family apart, it's torn the community apart. So now we had everything at the flip of a switch, and we didn't have to make any judgments, value judgments or otherwise. We just did what we wanted to do on a whim. And so much of this travel that we've done is useless and unproductive. You know, slowing down, there are a lot of benefits. A lot of the great thinkers have pointed out that we learn more by studying our backyard, you know, than going to Rome or Acapoco, but here we go, whirling around. And it may force us back inward to look at ourselves, and we may find ourselves and find a better life. A lot of it is what we do in our own lives, in our own homes, how we move about, and all of that.

But there are a lot of things that we can only do, particularly in the field of transportation, housing, redoing our cities. I think a great opportunity there, but the government has to play the major role in this and has to lead out, or we won't do anything. We're not doing much now. Mr. Udoz, close in remarks. Bring us back where we started to Washington. And to the people are going to make many of the critical decisions that will ultimately resolve whether the Chinese symbol as meaning for us. Will we react only to the dangers of this crisis? Or will we see and seize the opportunities as well? Meanwhile, life goes on in all areas of government, and the decisions and actions elsewhere in Washington can also influence how your life goes on. So, what happened to you in Washington this week? Well, on Monday, President Nixon presented to Congress the largest federal budget in the nation's history. And this is it.

So, I'm going to give you a hundred and thirty-one pages of charts and graphs detailing how $304 billion of your tax money will be spent in the next year. How will this budget affect you? Well, if you're a college student, you may find it easier to finance your education next year, because of the president's proposal to provide $1.3 billion for basic grants to college students. So, if the president themselves out of work may have a better chance next year to get involved in job training programs, the budget asks for an increase of $260 million in state and local manpower training activities. Finally, a decision this week on how not to spend your money. It seems that a group of feminist-minded women in Washington state are offended by the name of the manpower administration in the Labor Department. They asked their senator, Warren Magnuson, to look into changing the name to something a bit more liberated. Magnuson asked Labor Secretary Peter Brennan to study what this would cost. The answer? At least $5 million for new stationary door signs, etc.

Well, Mr. Brennan has decided not to spend that $5 million of your money to raise the consciousness of the Labor Department. All right, at the close of the first two programs in this series, we asked you to write us about your experiences good or bad with the U.S. Postal Service. The response has been intriguing. On the good side, a woman from Gulfport, Florida, wrote that she received a letter from a friend in Singapore in just three days. However, the wife of Wisconsin Governor Pat Lucy said she recently received a letter that had been in the mail for nine years. We're still interested in hearing from you about the U.S. Postal Service, so write us at Washington Connection, box 300, Washington, D.C. Until next week, for impact, I'm Jim Lara. Thank you and good night. Washington Connection has been made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation. This has been a production of ENPACT.