... AND MORE SUPREME CONTRIBUTIONS

On the other hand, the one and only function of government, we believe, is to protect the security of its citizens from aggressors, criminals and wrongdoers, and a startling case of the difference in the energy field has been brought to light by Reason magazine (Jan. 83).

The year before Joan Claybrook changed bosses from Ralph Nader to Jimmy Carter to become head of the Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 45,000 people were killed on US highways; in the last year of her tenure, the number rose to 51,100. Yet last year, with Raymond Peck at NHTSA, highway deaths dropped by 1,500, and a further decline is expected this year. Recession? No: highway travel has increased.

The explanation appears to be that Claybrook poured money into enforcing the 55 mph speed limit, originally introduced as an energy conservation measure; Peck's NHTSA has focused on helping states go after drunk drivers, a special menace on the local roads (less safe than the speed-inviting interstates). This may be a case where government interference in the economy costs lives, but protection from wrongdoers saves them.

And even in the judicial branch we can report a case where the government has rendered its supreme contribution. Arizona Public Service, reports the (excellent) State Energy Newsletter, has been granted an unusual 17% return on its equity. Judge Isaac Benkin opined that utility investors "are victims, not authors" of the utility's unsettled financial situation and should not be forced to accept a lower than prevailing rate "merely to satisfy some abstract notion of regulatory elegance."

The supreme contribution has also been exacted from the judicial branch by the Mountain States Legal Foundation. The "windfall profit" tax on oil production has not the slightest connection with profits (and would still be absurd if it did). The MSLF sued to have it struck down because it (1) is not uniformly applied (a portion of Alaska is somehow exempted), (2) is in fact a confiscatory tax on private property, and (3) fails to meet the minimum standards of rationality. A US district Judge in Wyoming did, in fact, strike down the law on the grounds of geographical non-uniformity, but went out of his way to reject the other two reasons, claiming that "even a seemingly arbitrary tax does not amount to confiscation or taking violative of due process... The goal of raising revenue is a sufficient one to justify a tax." (As we understand this, any tax, no matter how outrageous, may be levied provided it is inflicted with equal injustice for all.)

Though the President is opposed to the tax, his own Justice Department has decided to appeal the verdict on the grounds of some hairsplitting reason why a portion of Alaska should be exempted after all.

They must have got the NRC to advise them.