THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD

There is now only a single country in the whole world where cars line up at the gas pumps: the USA. There are no gas lines in Canada or Western Europe; Holland and Sweden have discarded rationing again. They simply let the price rise to meet the demand (to about 70 cents in Canada, $1 up in Europe).

In contrast, Americans not only line up at pumps, but also pay $60 million a year for the FEO alone. And the FEO does not provide more gas, it merely pushes the shortages around. But one does not need the FEO's 2,500 employees or its battery of computers to figure out that the gasoline crunch is likely to get worse this summer, because no matter what the Arabs decide, US refinery capacity is short by 3 million barrels a day. Why?

In part, because price controls and tax policies made it more profitable for oil companies to build refineries abroad; in part, because the ecomaniacs fought refinery construction tooth and nail whenever it was proposed.

"The state of Maryland won two big legal victories last month," says National Petroleum Refinery Association president D.C. O'Hara. "In one case, a federal judge agreed that Maryland had not received its fair share of gasoline allocations, and in the other they rushed through a special ordinance to prevent Crown Central from building a refinery."

The fashionable explanation is that the conspiracy of major oil companies has prevented competitors from building refineries. For example, the head of the FTC's Bureau of Competition told a Senate committee that no independent refinery has been built on the East Coast since 1950. The very room where he was testifying, says O'Hara, was being heated by oil refix ' On the East Coast by an independent company (Hess) that has been in business since 1958. And within a radius of 100 miles of the FTC building, four companies are seeking permits to build refineries, so far without success.

Those who look for scapegoats instead of oil might at least get their goats right.