In April, President Carter announced an ambitious reorientation of national energy policy toward conservation and renewable resources.¹ The National Energy Plan² combines a complicated series of price incentives and disincentives, mandatory efficiency standards, excise taxes, and production increases in order to achieve an American society that is more energy efficient and less dependent on foreign energy supplies. As is the case with most such integrated, complicated packages, the projected result—a reduction in the nation's annual energy growth rate to less than two percent—is overly optimistic in light of time and political realities. The Plan was barely a few weeks old when it was attacked by some parts of industry as not providing sufficient incentives to spur production of new domestic energy supplies, by Republicans as foregoing reliance on the free market to obtain the same results,³ by the auto industry as crippling new car production, and by some enfironmentalists, notably Barry Commoner, as containing the hidden plan for resuscitation of the plutonium breeder reactor. Despite these carpings, the Plan has already succeeded in re-emphasizing the continuing severity of the United States' energy problem and in giving the public and industry fair warning that this is merely the first pitch in a game that the President is willing to take into extra innings.

This Comment will outline the major provisions of the Plan in order to give a background for evaluating future congressional work on H.R. 6831, the legislation that seeks to implement the National Energy Plan. Also, brief descriptions of recent congressional actions on the Plan will be given. Notwithstanding an earlier sense of urgency, final legislation is expected to pass Congress no sooner than late August.