AN UNSPEAKABLE CRIME

A new and dreadful "imminent threat to public health" has been exposed by Ralph Nader's Health Research. The lead in wicks makes candle lit suppers result in "meals literally bathed in lead." The details of this latest testimony to Mr. Nader's competence are too sick to waste space on; the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which usually takes his pranks seriously, attributed the protest to "abysmal ignorance, colossal intent to deceive the public, or both."

But while the public is not yet panicking in wideeyed terror before this threat of genocide by candle light, it is ever more falling victim to the fairy tales disseminated by the Naders, Cronkites and Proxmires fanning the lynch mob hysteria against the oil companies.

Nader bemoans the total absence of oil statistics, and from this total absence he has determined that "this country is groaning in a sea of oil and gas." The oil companies are allegedly withholding 2 million barrels of oil a day; which must be the reason why they want 2 million barrels a day to flow through the Alaska pipeline. They keep their prices predatorily low to drive out the independents; they keep their prices predatorily high to gouge the consumer. They are allowed to pass on Arab price increases to the consumer; their tankers loiter in ports waiting for prices to rise. Their refineries are destroying the environment; their refineries are maliciously working below capacity.

When puerile arguments of this type contradict each other, it is obvious that they must contradict the facts as well. Oil statistics are compiled by the oil industry (which publishes them weekly); wig statistics, presumably, are compiled by the wig industry. Congress has not yet empowered the government to check the accuracy of either.

Refineries are subject not only to unforeseen failures, but also to scheduled maintenance and major overhauls. A company can therefore rarely work its refieneries at more than 90% capacity. Picked out by the lynchers last month were Texaco, which closed two of its refineries for overhauls scheduled two years ago, and Mobil, which put a new refinery on stream (never done at full capacity), so that its utilization percentage dropped while its production actually increased. The others were working at 93 to 95% capacity, a rate which is not maintainable for long in the best of times, and certainly not when crude stocks are down. These figures are readily available to anyone, especially to Walter Cronkite, who misleads millions of viewers by insinuations "why refineries are operating at such low levels."

The only argument of the lynchers that will stand up is that the oil companies are making a profit. This unspeakable crime will, no doubt, be eliminated when Ralph Nader becomes People's Commisar of the Nationalized Oil Industry.