As Vice-President Cheney pointed out in the Associated Press annual meeting on 30 April, "To speak (only) of conservation is to duck the tough issues." He says that the administration will focus on increased exploration for new sources of oil, coal and natural gas. He also expects an expansion of alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power.

Even so, expansion of energy production on the scale Cheney envisions, 1,300 to 1,900 power plants over the next 20 years, will be sure to meet political opposition from extremist left-wing groups. Such organizations oppose even clean hydro-electric dams because of their effect on salmon and wind-power because of the occasional bopped bird.

Cheney, in his speech, reiterated the administration's support for drilling in Alaska's barren and austere Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which could be tapped for oil without disrupting the environment or the caribou herds.

Of course, complaints were generated by Philip E. Clapp, president of the extreme group, National Environmental Trust, who unwarrantedly called Cheney's prescription "an across-the-board attack on the environment."

Cheney's plan also calls for implementing clean burning coal technologies and nuclear power.

U.S. energy problems have been rising to the surface first in California where over-regulation and environmental-extremism is most widely accepted. Power plant production has been inhibited by regulation, protests from a vocal minority and lack of incentive.

In Washington, federal energy regulators have directed that limited price controls on wholesale electricity in California be implemented only if California joins the Northwest in a joint power transmission system. Wholesale prices will be capped when electricity reserves fall below 7 percent. In effect, this will keep Californians from learning from the folly of past bureaucratic and political policies. It will also act as a mitigating factor in incentives to create new power generating plants.