ALASKA PIPE LINE AT LAST?

House and Senate conferees agreed on a final version of the bill authorizing the construction of the 800 mile pipeline from America's richest oil reserves on the Alaskan north slope to the Pacific port of Valdez, whence the oil will be shipped to the West coast of the contiguous states. The final version authorizes extra wide right of u ay (a technicality that was exploited by environmentalist legal guerilla tactics) and declares the project environmentally acceptable. Ratification by both House and Senate is expected in early November.

The environmental organizations will still have 60 days after ratification to challenge the bill, and there may yet be another joker in the deck: The White House Office of Management and the Budget will urge President Nixon to veto the bill because of the powers given to the FTC in seeking court injunctions against "unfair competitive practices." If these hurdles are overcome, construction could start next spring, but it won't be before 1978 that the pipeline will begin to deliver 2 to 3 million barrels of oil a day, about 10% of total US demand predicted for that time.

That amount is almost double what the Arabs are cutting off today; but for environmentalist fanati^ cism, the oil squeeze would now be a picnic. In one way or another, the Sierra Club, the Friends of the Earth, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Wilderness Society, the Audubon Club, and a host of other superstition mongers participated in the sabotage. In the early stages, they printed draw ings of oilbesmirched elk herds unable to cross the pipeline; in their dogged last ditch stands, they claimed that all the oil would be exported to Japan, and with the cool arrogance of a British viceroy ruling Indian they decreed that the pipeline should go through Canada, never asking what Canada might have to say about that.

In fact, the pipeline will be built with environmental safeguards bordering on the ridiculous. Long sections of the line will be raised above ground (let alone providing elk crossings); electronic sensors will automatically shut off the flow by densely spaced valves if a fault develops; the flexible tubing has been tested in specially designed labs at the University of California to withstand the stress of earthquakes even the nik of oB spills by takers caking the oil from Valdez has been heavily overinsured, for the technology to clean up oil spills quickly and efficicntly has been developed since the Cornwall and Santa Barbara oil spills.

Export to Japan is another red herring, for the bill expressly requites the President to approve any Alaskan oil exported to Japan or elsewhere, and even then, the presidential approval may be vetoed by Congress.

What harre the environmentalists gained by their tactics of legalistic sabotage? The delay will cost an additional S1 billion, bringing construction costs to S4.5 billion. It has increased the energy crunch and weakened America's national security. But most interestingly, it has helped to bring about relaxation of pollution standards. NQ one quarrels with the environmentalists' desire for clean air and clear waterthe trouble is that their blind anti-technology tactics eventually lead to dirty air and foul water.

Another side effect of the delay was to spawn a movement for Alaska to secede from the Union. One of the bumperstrips expressing some Alaskans' frustration and hostility toward the "lower 49" reads Let the bastards freeze in the dark.

Not all of us in the lower 49 are bastards; but we may yet freeze in the dark.