News of the Week

CARTER PROPOSES REGULATORY REFORM In a "call for common sense" Presi­dent Carter has sent Congress a comprehensive proposal "to reduce, rationalize, and streamline the regu­latory burden throughout American life."

Noting that it has been 30 years since the last comprehensive regula­tory reform package was passed, Carter explains that when he came to Washington two years ago he found a "regulatory assembly line which churned out new rules, paper work, regulations, and forms without plan, without direction, and seemingly without supervision or control." The result was that "with the best of in­tentions, 90 separate regulatory agencies were issuing 7000 new rules every single year."

To correct this situation, Carter's legislative proposal first would re­quire a federal agency, when devel­oping a major rule, to list alternative means of accomplishing its objective and the costs and benefits of each al­ternative. The agency then would have to select the least costly way to achieve the rule's objectives.

The legislation also would require each federal agency to:

• Establish a schedule to review its major and minor rules, identify those that have become outmoded and/or ineffective, and either update or eliminate them.

• Publish semiannual agendas of upcoming rules.

• Revamp procedures for rule­making hearings to eliminate needless legal formality and delay.

• Set deadlines on most proceed­ings.

To increase public participation in rule-making procedures the bill pro­vides for more advance notice to the public, a longer comment period, and consultation with affected state and local governments. It also authorizes limited government funding for public groups that want to participate in the procedures, but can't afford to.

In the future, Carter says, he will be sending Congress proposals to reform several individual regulatory statutes. A proposal to deregulate the surface transportation industry already has been sent to Capitol Hill. Others—on drugs, nuclear plant siting, meat and poultry inspection, and communica­tions—will follow, he promises.

Carter: reduce regulatory burden

Carter also strongly supports the so-called "sunset" proposals now before Congress. These set a schedule for Congressional review of each fed­eral program once every 10 years, with related programs being reviewed

OPEC increases alter ch Just when U.S. chemical prices showed the first signs of easing off their supercharged pace of the past four months, the new increases in world oil prices from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries throw uncertainty into the chemical price outlook. In effect, after adjust­ing quite effectively to the rise in world oil prices this winter, U.S. chemical companies must get ready for a possible new round of adjust­ments in the next half-year.

One difference this time is that world oil prices are spread over a wider official range, from $14.54 per bbl for Saudi Arabian light-grade crude to more than $18 per bbl for crude oil, mostly light, from Algeria, Libya, and Nigeria. The last three countries have added their own sur­charges to the benchmark Saudi price, which itself is up 9% from the level of $13.34 established in Jan­uary.

Hence, there is theoretically more room for oil customers to bargain with producers. However, in practice, some considerations act to limit any such

simultaneously. Spending authority for the programs would terminate if Congress did not act to renew or re­vise the program.

But the President is just as strongly opposed to Congress' retaining a veto power over the regulations that agencies issue as it has been doing in some laws passed recently, such as for the Department of Energy. "Any se­rious effort to administer the legisla­tive veto," Carter says, "would require a major increase in Congressional staff and threaten the Constitutional division of power."

In the nonlegislative area, Carter says that the Administration is working on revisions of all Occupa­tional Safety & Health Administra­tion safety standards to make them simpler and more flexible; stream­lining Environmental Protection Agency permit procedures; devel­oping a coordinated policy on iden­tification and regulation of cancer-causing substances; and increasing research to improve the factual basis for regulations on toxic chemicals, air pollutants, and radiation. D

mical price outlook shopping around. For one thing, U.S. oil purchasers are largely stuck at the high end of the price scale, since most U.S. refineries must use light grades of crude. In addition, the current tight supply of world oil and the threat of possible production cutbacks by Saudi Arabia and others help pre­serve the current equilibrium of supply and demand.

The current economics boom in U.S. manufacturing, including the chemical industry, does nothing to cool the world oil market. In chemi­cals, for example, a near-shortage psychology has aided companies in boosting prices dramatically for many important products, particularly the basic aromatics, since this past sum­mer. For the consumer, economic signals are more mixed, but demand continues high for gasoline, the number one product from crude oil.

Hence, chemical prices in the next few months could climb again. In the past few weeks, as the world price of a key chemical raw material, naphtha, retreated from very high levels, widespread signals appeared of sim-

6 C&EN April 2, 1979