It was perhaps inevitable that the collective trauma that Americans suffered during last winter's acute shortage of gasoline and heating fuel would generate the need to find a scapegoat. Different individuals and groups have chosen different targets. Some blame poor governmental planning and a lack of citizen concern, while others view the oil industry's soaring profits and questionable statistics as evidence of an artificially manufactured crisis designed to eliminate small competitors and drive prices up. Still others blame the environmental movement, although environmentalists in the past have found the goals of cleaning up the human habitat and conserving resources to be complementary. Many critics argue a direct relation between the proliferation of emission standards and controls and inefficient energy use, urging that the Clean Air Act was passed on the assumption that fuel shortages would not occur. Whether real, imagined, or contrived, the lack of such "clean" fuels as low sulfur oil and natural gas has greatly heightened interest in the rapid development of coal resources.

Each of the legislative proposals springing up in the wake of the gas shortages has involved measures intended to curtail petroleum use and encourage the use of coal. The Energy Supply and Environmental Coordination Act of 1974¹ passed by the House on May 1 by a vote of 349 to 43, is substantially similar to portions of the Energy Emergency Act² vetoed by President Nixon because of its provision for a rollback of oil prices, and to separate Administration proposals for amendments to the Clean Air Act. The Act passed by the House would both amend the Clean Air Act to allow suspension of emission restrictions and authorize the proposed Federal Energy Administration to force major fuel-burning installations to convert to coal as their primary energy source.