EDITORIAL

Energy Sports: The Clinton Era

L ike ice hockey, politics is a blood sport. When hockey

fans see a defenseman thump an offensive foe into the boards they rise to their feet as one and roar, releasing God knows what emo- tions. In politics it’s the same. Ask George Bush and Zoe Baird.

Politics is fun to watch because the wounded usually are not inno- cent sheep, but warriors. They “assume the risk,” as the tort law- yers say. No hard feelings - and please carry old Jeremy off the field.

Now we have a new crowd of players swarming into the arena. And what is it, I wonder, that we want of them? President Clinton is already learning how closely we watch, how critically we judge. What to make of the open- ing shots in the Clinton-era en- ergy games?

We have the Secretary of the Treasury musing on an important TV interview show about the pos- sibility of energy taxes, scant days after the Secretary of Energy told her confirmation panel that no en- ergy taxes seem to be in the offing this year. Is something amiss?

Was Secretary Bentsen’s energy tax balloon intded to fall to earth, as made of lead? Or was it just a stalking horse for deficit-cut- ting castor oil the President will come into our living rooms to ad-

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minister, one of the “sacrifices” mentioned in his inaugural? If properly handled, it seems not un- likely that some sort of energy tax could pass a political smell test this year. But if botched, nothing will avail.

Speculating on: Was Secretary Bentsen’s tax palaver a straw bub- ble, a shrewd sashay toward something like an oil import tax - a “briar patch” domestic oil pro- ducers would love? If Bentsen’s talk was not just strategic probing or a clever move for Texas oil in- terests, why wasn’t policy talk be- ing more closely coordinated?

A nd what about other in- side-the-beltway interests?

Consumer groups, which may now have more clout than they re- cently have had, were given no “heads up” on the energy tax trial balloon, so they seem to have dug in their heels. They have a lot of company. Perhaps one of those mutated strange-bedfellow alli- ances will result. Picture, for ex- ample, the Consumer Federation of America linking arms with the National Coal Association.

Most of us will never know whether Secretary Bentsen’s rumi- nations on TV were merely can- did or a neatly planted red her- ring. But because most of us like our government’s policy to be co- ordinated, we want to believe that

Secretary Bentsen called Secretary O’Leary before he went on TV to ask if she would mind if- de- spite what she told the Senate En- ergy Committee - he mentioned the possibility of an energy tax in a deficit-cutting context. Most of us would feel better still if the Presi- dent was in on the game - if the different signals were something like probes in a game of “Battle- ship“ - a way of gathering im- portant data.

I n the Clinton era, it seems likely that Energy will be

only one player in shaping some aspects of energy policy - and not always the most important one - along with the Environ- mental Protection Agency, Treas- ury, Interior and others. Of course, we don’t know whether it will be thumper or a thumpee.

In any case, we do wish Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bentsen and Ms. O’Leary and their colleagues well. Unlike the national press, we be- lieve they should be given time.

After all, as the President’s mother, Virginia Kelly, knows bet- ter than most of us - to stretch our sports metaphor beyond the breaking point - the Kentucky Derby winner is seldom in the lead at the beginning of the race. n

The EZectricity Journal