EVALUATION REPORT

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CIA-RDP85-00988R000500030003-2
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RIPPUB
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K
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9
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December 14, 2016
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May 14, 2003
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3
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Publication Date: 
October 15, 1979
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FORM
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' E t AL USE ONLY , '`NFI AV EVALUATION REPORT TO: ? Executive Secretary SUGGESTION NO. SUSPENSE DATE Suggestion and Achievement 79-282 Awards Committee INSTRUCTIONS: Please complete this form in detail to guide the Suggestion and Achievement Awards Committee in making a final determination of the merits of this proposal. Retain third copy. ? DECLINE El OTHER (Specify): ACTION RECOMMENDED E ADOPT 1 . . DATE ADOPTED 2. REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATION (If more space is needed, use plain paper) In order to fully evaluate this suggestion, a vacuum gauge was installed on an Agency test vehicle and monitored closely for several days during various traffic situations. The exercise revealed that during acceleration there is always a decrease in engine vacuum. The amount of decrease depends upon the suddenness and duration of acceleration. Maximizing engine vacuum at all times would therefore tend to increase efficiency of gasoline consumption. However, there was an insignificant and almost unmeasurable decrease in gasoline consumption of the test vehicle during the course of the exercise. This occurred in spite of concerted efforts on the part of the driver to maximize engine vacuum at all times, even to the extent that extremely slow acceleration was necessitated while proceeding uphill. Our overall evaluation of this proposal reveals that insufficient benefits exist to justify installing vacuum gauges on Agency vehicles. Gasoline efficiency may best be obtained by exercising good driving habits, such as avoiding "jack rabbit" starts, accelerating and decelerating smoothly, staying within posted speed limits or existing traffic flows, and by proper engine maintenance as specified by the vehicle's manufacturer. OL 9 2295a 3. TANGIBLE FIRST-YEAR SAVINGS (Man-hours, material, equipment, etc.) 4. INTANGIBLE BENEFITS (See guide on reverse side of third copy) 5. WHAT OTHER OFFICES, DIVISIONS, ETC. MIGHT ALSO USE THIS IDEA? (Use plain paper to continue report, if necessary) 4TE SIGNATURE OF EVALUATOR (Type name and title) F I Chairman, Internal Suggestions Awards Panel, OL O77 244b EUSE DITION S~~1r9V 0~ ~F--I;$?~J?J8J4~~3-2 n SECRET 1431 LAYYI OV USE ONLY Approved For ,se 2003/06/20: CIA-RDP85-00988R0 500030003-2 EMPLOYEE SUGGESTION NO. 79-282 - REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATION Although this suggestion is not recommended for adoption, the suggester's concern for energy conservation is nonetheless appreciated. Distribution: Orig & 1 - ES/SAAC - OL/P&PS - OL/LSD OL/LSD (15 Oct 79) Approved For Release 2003/06/20 : CIA-RDP85-00988R000500030003-2 Approved For ReJ se 2003/06/20 : CIA-RDP85-00988RQ29500030003-2 InEOpsua~cT.A~ suc~~~~aal. %-111 i_i ll.~ r: Z c?t:.C@ the national gasoline LET :n - :i: c)Y E' 'c'.UC.7- 1' j f ' i ' Ili.. ibe of miles ?nq_inc intake 21 anlfolc nO '?:_1o tacuiri Pressure always !Tl'1ximiS`.1) it least l0 ?ocr cases (riountainous clri i l{?~ clos-,r to 2) p n-rrrn . 1f. r ii?.`ii (or auto 1 ciors) 1 are to install anCi c rive in to such J.!stn-rt n i_l .G: _`17L pan ,.Z in a loczt.icm hi fr ll.y Vlc:lJ: to ~; n-1 C.i i ~T,? ... :;l l a C~11T1E'CteCI RESEN METfiQD ~ ;'t e +;: .a 1 ,FV 7 ' +!c;o1 7n . ';11'.'r' cIriver# suggestion r.-_xt_r s to 1 ~c ri c _ c~ who to ^ 1ve gasoline shout: --,2-ply 1T1st t1_i 1n.`.?. a vac un c't uce oii 1^-.i..1:' au~t0 If this suggestion can be giv n (Such as =41t be SUGGESTI(~NN~J9~ t r:~~?at o the driving oiiolic wouldl wor- to r_ i--j it out. Just tha cr'ncep)t of a ,` 1~_yr v i si b e reminder of gasoline constnq~tion would. have an ecxmcxni incr e f.. ct on many RM 24t USE PREVIOUS 3/76) EDITIONS 3 SECRET ^ CONFIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATIVE ^ INTERNAL USE ONLY Approved ~ 2003/6/2 CAA 0 E IMPDET CL BY__ ^ UNCLASSIFIED M UNCLASSIFIED ^ U S iv ^ CONFIDENTIAL SECRET o UTIING AND RECORD SHEET T SUGGESTION AND ACHIEVMN' AWARDS COMMITTEE 915 Al ES BUILDING TO: (Officer designation, room number, and building) f a. L - C PES-E ETABY SUGGESTION AND ACHIEVEMEN AWARDS COMMITTEE OFFICER'S INITIALS COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.) What does OL think? Should we send DOE? 00300P2 UNCLASSIFIED Approved For ease 2003/06/20 : CIA-RDP85-0098810500030003-2 V THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE 23 September 1979 CPYRG T 3 i i 1 i a ; 3 a vn:; If lj~~ -11 1_3 3-1 Fred 1 C. ok he great "oiloil crisis" of tote' . petrated a helpless ess people. The truth is that there was no shortage of oil. President Carter's Sermon on the. Mount. on Sunday night,. July- t5,?ignored the fraud. He insisted that the shortage was "real." To have admitted that it was. not would have entailed an admission of the culpability of Big Oil and at President Carter's own recumbent Department of Energy (DOE). The naive may say to themselves; "Why, this cannot be." So let's begin by citing some sources: A Federal Trade Commission study plies were up from 4 to 3 percent-(depend Ing on the.month in which- the-cemparisoti .was made) during, the first four months of. 1979 over the comparable period in 1973. A US Customs figures, independently verified by House. of Representatives researchers, show that the "Iranian short fall" s4wideiy trumpeted to validate the "crisis' was a red herring, because im- ports,of oil during the first five.mgnths of.. 1079 actually -increased' W percent over-- A world energy assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency, shows. that. world oil production in the-:first quay of 1979 was:up despite the Iraniaadisrup tion; that US imports, through May showed a big increase over 1973 figures.- and that American firms; in this very: time of supposed- crisis were actually ex=- porting_ore: oil thanthey,,hadin 1978' L.et's ' explore some `of j this dJ to iiz. greater depth before getting into the questions of hover and why the nation was thrown. into. chaos- with g= lines some=' times miles long: with truckers staging-'a; nationwide protest against the high price and scarcity of - diesel fuel; with some., farmers plowing under crops because' they could., not get-trucks:--to-transport A them.. `.. Approved down in history as one of the. per - greatest frauds ever When President Carter came down from the Mount, he thumped the table in the Oval Office and announced that he, was not going to. permit the. importation of a single gallon of oiI.more than we had ` imported in 1977. What -the public and practically all of the commentators didn't know-was that we imported so much. oil in 1977 that Big Oil suffered acute glut pains and couldn't get those damned prices up. The' American Petroleum Institute is the official spokesman for the industry. Its figures are accepted without question by- the Department of Energy because they are the only figures the DOE has. Other sources suspect that the Petroleum Institute's statistics often gild the lily for Big' Oil, which is only to be expected. However, with this caveat, look at what the industry's own figures show: Total crude oil stocks in millions of barrels at year's end 1977 reached 339.859, a 19.1 per- cent increase over 1976. At year's end 1978, total stocks had dropped to 314.462, a decrease of 7.5 percent, bringing us into 1979 with a potentially short situation. But, as in almost every facet of this story, things weren't what they seemed. In. addition to the normal crude oil sup-j plies, the federal government has estab-I lished a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Into this reserve; stored in salt domes in Loui- siana,-. it has poured literally billions of gallons of imported oil; and the Depart- ment of Energy, with its usual efficiency, has. dumped all that oil into the caverns without thinking about installing pumps. To get it out. If one includes the extra millions of barrels thatwere committed to this stra- tegic reserve in 1978, the figures on the .nation's total petroleum stocks, expressed in millions of barrels, read- this way:. 381.322 at end of 1978 compared with 347.689 at the end of that 1977 "glut" year. In otherwords, the nation came into 1979 with 9.7 percent more crude stocks on the market and in the reserve than it had had. at the. stare of 1978;. when the industry was moaning because it had so much oil it. couldn't even get gasoline prices up to the- permitted ceilings. -. _:. - It is enough to make one ask; "What- the devil goes on here?" `.'that went on is- For Release 2(*3,I0 9L,s,G.hA.7paDPn ~5-LQ;Q9l+ would expect to get a straight answer- from Dr. James R. Schlesinger's Depart ment of Energy. In January and February 1978, when I first began to poke my nose into the , .; situation, I was intrigued and angered the- fact that No. 2 home-heating oil, which for at least half a century has been one of the cheapest products of the refin- eries, was selling at prices that made it more expensive than the more highly :,- fined regular gasoline, once one discount- ed 12-cent-a-gallon state and federal taxes on gasoline.' - My inquiries brought the reply from industry sources and from the DOE through my congressman that there was virtually a price war on for gasoline be- cause there was so much of it. Heating oil, however, had been decontrolled in : ,e last days of the Ford Administration; tht homeowner, anchored in place by his :Lr- nace, couldn't shop around - and so ie was-zapped. - Given this untidy situation, Big ^i. drew down stocks during 1978 and by late fall had created a situation in which there began to be alarming talk of. shortag'_s Shell Oil led the way, imposing drastic cuts on the delivery of gasoline to is retailers; Mobil, Citgo, the whole- :r iet? fell into line behind the force:piay. ?eta;, gasoline dealers roared their outrage: there was a nasty flareback of damaging publicity; and, the big oil companies backed off for the moment, restoring ,ie- liveri4s to nearly normal. Then,, heaven sent, came the Lran:an revolution; which' closed down the .;,1 fields. The myth of the"Iranian shor fall" was born. Actually, only 5 percent of our imported oil came from Iran, and this shortage was quickly offset by'steoped-ur production in Saudi Arabia, increase? Alaskan supplies and lesser '.increases from other-sources. - - CIA figures show that Free World pro- duction expressed in thousands of barrels daily, rose. to -6,515 in the first quarter of 1979 compared with 46.305 in .1978. Cus- toms figures, as recorded by the Census Bureau, show that -imports through May 00500030003-2 CPYRG Approved For Fjglease 2003/06/20: CIA-RDP85-00988MQ0500030003-2 T ncreased 10 percent over those for the first five weeks of 1973. Indeed, the .n- ports for these first five months of 1979 almost matched the levels established in tr. : ear of 1977. T`t,e CIA in-depth study echoed the Customs Services findings. It showed im- ports in the first five months of 1979 out:.=.ripping those of 1978. The CIA assessment revealed another c.irnous fact. In this 1979 year of "crisis," American firms actually exported more chi in every one of the first five months than they had in either 1977 or 1978. Ex- ports ranged from 329,000 barrels daily in January to 445,000 barrels daily in both April and May. Yet in lush 1977, exports had ranged from only 192,000 barrels daily to 2_88,000. . . The fact that we were actually export- ing more oil in 1979. than we had in the two previous noncrisis years would seem to indicate manipuation of the market. This suspicion, shared by more than two- thirds of the American people, according. to public opinion polls, is reinforced when one reads the Federal Trade Commission memo of May 30. - . Reporting on a study. made by the commission's staff, the memo said: '"The data indicates, among other things, that gasoline supplies in. 1979 were up by-" percent, depending on the time period, over 1973's. Net supply of gasoline in April was particularly plentiful compared to the previous April (up by 22.9 percent). Significantly, however, every time period month, ouarter, third - shows in- creased sdoplies and no indication of a shortage." Yet it was in late April and early May that the gasoline pumps in California suddenly went dry, beginning the drought that was to spread across the na- tion to New York, Washington, D.C., and cities in between. In a nation whose whole economy since World War II has been structured around networks of su- perhighways on which federal and state governments have lavished billions of dollars, panic. struck, accompanied by_ frustration and fury., The evidence establishes that none or., this was necessary; it suggests that this was a "crisis" carefully orchestrated by Big Oil, aided and abetted by- the compla- cent non-watchdog in the DOE. And even. by President Carter himself - a Presi- dent who has in his public pronounce- ments consistently followed the line set 11 down by Big Oil. . Jack Anderson, the Washington. col- umnist, has published excerpts from se- cret White House minutes indicating that President Carter deliberately cuc back gasoline supplies to 'keep his pledge to ocher industrial nations that the United States would reduce oil consumption by 5 percent. At a May 7 meeting, just as mo- torists were queuing up for miles in Cali- fornia, Carter told his Cabinet: "Our pri- ority will continue to be some heating, ag- riculture and emergency needs over highway driving ... There will be less gasoline, and it will cost more." Those last words confirm Jack Anderson's scoop. They match word for word the public Presideetial refrain that all of is have) heard for months: "There will be less gas- oline, and it will cost more." Cost more! That is what this scenario is all about. The Carter Administration for months has backed every move that would make gasoline and other fuel prod- ucts more costly, on the theory that high- er prices would "force" conservation. For months; the Administration talked about -$l-a=gallon gasoline. Privately, it was scripting an even more brutal program. Jerry Ferrara, the outspoken executive director of the New Jersey Retail Gaso- line Dealers Association, described in a television appearance on July 2-how he and his associates had "pounded on every door" in Washington seeking the adoption of a more sensible policy. He said he had met face to face with Dr. Schlesinger, and he added: "He (Schlesinger)' said that if gasoline got up to $1. a gallon by 1981, the American people would have to conserve. And then he walked out of the room." Virtually every tactic imaginable hash been employed by the oil companies to generate the atmosphere of shortages andi crisis that would open the floodgates of price. _ One of the most ingenious involved -the stockpiling of crude and finished products on tankers dawdling at sea. Spokesmen for the maritime workers who man the tankers aver that big oil compa- nies sent out word that their tankers-were to steam at no more than 10 knots instead .of the 16 to 17 they are capable of doing. "When tankers are reduced to 10 knots," one maritime spokesman says, "a voyage from Beaumont, Tex., to Boston that would usually take five days stretches out to nine. And when you have whole fleets of tankers out there, loaded with hun- dreds of thousands of gallons each, you are stockpiling a lot of stuff on the high seas." Not until the middle of June, anoth- er maritime spokesman says, did "one ma- jor oil company reverse its orders" and let its tankers steam at 16 to 17 knots. - The stall at sea has been matched oy stalls in tort. Turnaround tame in port. which used to take from 1S hours to }^= day, now frequently stretches to two or '. o and a hail as s. ;tretines.;e:inertes say they have no cargo ready to shit,.:.. other times ships loaded with relined products come into port and find stora;- tanks so fiul that there, is no way to unload. The stockpiling at sea and the delays in port are just a couple of the ploys that have helped to produce the oil panic tf 1979. The oil industry, it would appear, had a couple of other even more impor- tant maneuvers up its sleeve. Justice De- partment anti-trust lawyers have been ,trying to find out why it was that just at I this time of supposed shortages, domestic crude oil production in the fnite&States .went into its steepest decline in, seven years. In a preliminary and relatively un- noticed report, justice Department attor- neys concluded that, from December! through April,. the falloff in domestic drilling had cost the nation some 11 mil- lion barrels of gasoline. Since there are 42! gallons to the barrel, that represents a lot of gasoline. This falloff in domestic pro- duction came at a time when oil company profits in the first quarter of 1979 were going through the roof. While the companies were demano:.-,g price decontrol as a prerequisite for in- creased domestic production, first quarter, profits at Exxon were already up 37 per- cent: Gulf's were up 61 percent and other majors like Standard Oil of Ohio were registering increases of more than 300 per- cent. The drop in domestic drilling was ac- companied by a second cutback, a reduc- tion of refinery output. "That is where t all hangs out," one industry critic says. does indeed. - Refineries capable of operating at J , 92 percent of capacity (this is, virtua:,y full-out considering inevitable mainte- nance delays) dropped their runs in t^.; season of our travail to a bare 84 percent. ! The American- Petroleum Institute itself acknowledged that, in the second wean of' June, refineries were operating at only 84.1 percent of capacity. The following week, the runs were stepped up to 34.5 percent-still . far below capacity at a time when, all reliable evidence shows, crude stocks were in plentiful supply, waiting to be processed. - O Approved For Release 2003/06/20 : CIA-RDP85-00988R000500030003-i App For ease 2O03106/2bt:CIA-Rpg86r99118F O500030003-2 Ion in late spring :y i3, has jumped in a year to more than ! cents, with the pros- pect that it will o.- -Priced at between 80 1, and 90 cents this e~t..,io s 'winter. Regular i gaol..te, which as late as 7ebruary was selling at 599 cents (only a few cents more than untaxed heating oil), now sells for from 39.9 to 91 cents. Unleaded and super-unleaded (the latter needed in many cars to avoid damaging knocks from low-octane unleaded) have zoomed in price at some stations to $1.45 or more. This brutal escalation, which puts Dr. Schlesinger's $2 gasoline in our immedi- ate future, has been achieved through the delightful collaboration between Dr. Schlesinger's DOE and the oil industry. All during 1978, when the gas glut made it impossible to sell gasoline at ceil- ing prices, individual gas station owners were allowed to "bank" the differential on their records. Came 1979, the "short- age," zooming OPEC prices; and, with frustrated motorists on' gas lines willing to pay anything, those deferred, spurious "banked" sums were tacked onto the al ready zooming prices. As usual, the con- sumer got zonked . The DOE has now ended this banking system, but prices have already been driv- en to levels from which it is almost cer- tain they will never come down. Summing it all up, one analyst in Washington observed: "The Department of Energy must be either the most stupid or the most influenced department the federal governemnt ever created. The only thing is, you would think that if they were just being stupid, they would make a mistake once in a while in favor of the consumer. But they never do." Approved For Release 2003/06/20 : CIA-RDP85-00988R000500030003-2 Approved For .,LL ~ Release 2003/06/20 : CIA-RDP85-009880500030003-2 ~ o -'=D THE WASH! G T ON POST Ott PAGED 22 September 1979 11 lexleo ecord ion atural Gas By J. P. Smith - Wasainnon Post Mail writer Breaking a nearly two-year-old deadlock, Mexico and the United States have agreed on a natural gas sale that could improve relations between the two countries and open the way for increased, Mex- ican oil exports in the future. While the amount of gas Mexico will be selling to the United States is small-only about half a- percent of total consumption-President Carter said yesterday it represented a breakthrough in often-strained relations-between the two nations. He also said it is "a significant step toward pro- viding a new energy source for our country." The agreement was reached- yesterday in Mex- ico, capping six months of difficult and frequently interrupted talks. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher yesterday told reporters that the United States V,ould pay $3.625 per thousand cubic feet for 300 million cubic feet of natural gas a day. The price is the highest anywhere in the world fc- pipeline gas, though Assistant Secretary of. Sate Jules Katz told reporters that because the amount of gas involved is so small, the effect on consumer prices will be "hardly noticeable." Once the gas starts flowing, it will amount to only 8. percent of the"United States' total gas imports. However, the two nations- also agreed to- tie the price to the quarterly increases in world crude oil prices. And the parties agreed that either may can- cel the deliveries on 18a days?_ notice:: CPYRG T Christopher told reporters at a Waite House briefing that the gas deal was unrelated to Presi- dent Jose Lopez Poitilio's scheduled state visit next week. In recent weeks, however, senior administrat_on officials have been saving in private that Carter had asked State and Energy Depart-meat negotia- tors to move aggressively to get a deal before Lo- pez Portillo's visit. Earlier this year Caner and former energy sec- retary James R. Schlesinger drew heavy fire from Congress for not completing the gas pact with In Mexico City yesterday. a high-ranking Mexi- can official told Washington correspondent Marlise Simons: "-We got an agreement because the U.S. suddenly agreed to our final offers. It was as sim- ple as that.. We are very pleased-- The price Mexico will receive for its gas is the equivalent of $21-a-barrel crude oil but significant- ly less than the price of liquefied natural gas. which is more expensive by a dollar or more per thousand cubic feet. One almost certain outcome. of the deal with Mexico is that Canada, which now supplies the United States with significant amounts of gas. will raise its prices to match the Mexican price. Earlier this year Canada was selling its gas to U.S. pipe- line companies at S2.l6 per thousand cubic feet, but last August the price was raised to -3.30. U.S. officials have said recently that they expect Ottawa's National Energy Board to boost Canada's prices to $3.30 per thousand cubic feet or more by January. Christopher and other U.S. negotiators, includ- Approved For Release 2003/06/20 : CIA-RDP85-00988R000500030003-2 Approved For Release 2003/06/20 : CIA-RDP85-00988R000500030003-2 ? Katz. stressed that the Lni.ted States and Mexico have ne_otiated -a frarnewor'.;." and that the actual sale will depend upon further details to he negotiated between the pipeline com- panies ar.d Petroleous '.lexicanos (Pemex). the Mexican state oil monop- oly. The agreement will not require the construction of a new pipeline. U.S. officials, however. say that if the amount of deliveries is increased sharply. Mexico will have to increase pipeline capacity. The consortium of companies that will take delivery of the gas initially signed an agreement in August 1977, but that deal was rejected by Schles- inger because the administration be- lieved the. price was too high. - Under the 1977 pricing formula, the gas would now be flowing across the border at nearly $j per thousand cu- bic feet. The consortium is led by Tenneco and Texas Eastern Transmission, and includes Southern Natural Gas, El Paso Natural Gas, Florida Natural Gas and Transcontinental Gas. ' - There have been seven negotiating sessions on gas since Carter's Febru- ary visit to Mexico. The United States at first demanded that the price be tied to America's domestic inflation rate, not to world oil prices. ? llexico wanted prices linked to 7e-.) troleum product prices, such as those inc middle distillate (heating) oil. By Thursday both sides agreed to peg prices to a composite world. crude 0;1 trice. details of which still have to ne worked out by Pemex and be com- panies. Another sticking point in the talks was Mexico's desire for an agreement that would allow Pemex to cancel de- liveries on short notice. U.S. officials stress that the cas sale depends upon how Iona -,Wex:co continues to have a gas surplus. Un- der the a reement, Mexico is ex- pected to earn about .Si million a day. Unlike those in most oil exporting countries. Mexico's oil fields contain a high percentage of so-called-"associ- ated gas"-gas that is in effect pro- duced along with oil. Petroleum engi. neers and the Library of Congress have argued that providing Mexico with an incentive to produce gas would be to G.S. advantage, becuse it would encourage increased oil produc- tion as well. i\Iex co exports nearly a million bar- rels of oil a day, most of which flows to the G.S. market. Central Intelligence Aaencv studies say that ..iexico could boost its on ex- irts o.- as much as lour Trillion :o six million barrels a day during the 1980s. Approved For Release 2003/06/20 CIA-RDP85-00988R000500030003-2