European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 26, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 12 the stars and stripes James j. Kilpatrick monday september 26, 1977 for once we find Senate liberals Are right forgive me Mother for what i am about to do i am about to climb in bed with Teddy Kennedy Birch Bayh Howard Metzenbaum and 27 other dreadful people and the Prospect is dismaying. But in seek ing to Lay some restraints on the great Oil companies the Senate liberals Are right and my brother conservatives Are wrong. If that be heresy make the most of it. The Issue came to a head on sept. 8, when Kennedy offered an amendment to a Pend ing Energy Bill. He proposed to make it unlawful for any major Petroleum producer to acquire any interest in or control Over any Coal asset or uranium asset after the columns comments Date of enactment of this  the Amend ment would not have compelled the major companies to sell off the Coal and uranium properties they now own but it was a second Cousin to such divestiture. I m for it. As it turned out. Kennedy s amendment was voted Down 62-30, on a motion to table. Every professing Liberal was lined up behind the amendment and every certified conservative against it. Tower of Texas had the purple conniption fits he accused Kennedy of speaking the Lan Guage of expropriation which should raise the hackles of every american who believes in the free Enterprise  Thurmond of South Carolina a True Blue conservative called Kennedy s proposal  opponents argued that Only the giant Petroleum companies have the capital and the expertise to produce the Coal and uranium the nation needs. As George Mason urged 200 years ago let us recur to fundamental principles. A fundamental principle of conservatism is to fear concentrations of great Power and to seek ways to restrain them. That is one of the things our Constitution is All about. I had been taught and until this debate i had truly supposed that conservatives Dis Anthony Lewis trusted too much bigness wherever it exists big government big labor big Media big bureaucracy whatever. The conservative principle holds that bigness is not necessarily badness but at some Point a rebuttable presumption arises. That Point in my View assuredly has been reached in the matter of the great Oil companies and competing Energy sources. In warning against the concentration of economic Power in this vital area Kennedy Bayh and the others were expounding sound conservative doctrine. They were the ones crying for greater Competition. They made sense to me. What has happened in recent years is that the Petroleum giants have moved horizontally into the acquisition of Coal and uranium. Gulf Oil led off in 1963 with its acquisition of Pittsburg Midway Coal company. Continental Oil in 1966 took Over consolidation Coal then the leading Coal producer. Occidental Petroleum acquired Island Creek which was number three. Standard Oil of Ohio acquired old Ben number 10. Meanwhile Kerr Mcgee moved heavily into uranium. Fourteen of the top 20 owners of Coal re serves today Are Oil companies. Nearly half of total Coal reserves now Are owned by the Petroleum giants. The major companies dominate research and develop ment in such areas As Coal Gasi fiction and Oil shale production. Looking ahead the Prospect is not for giant Oil companies As such but for Energy conglomerates for super Corpora tons effectively controlling every form of Energy production transportation and marketing. Colorado s Floyd Haskell made his Point sarcastically. It is absurd he said to suppose that a company making Nice profits off of Oil and Gas is going to promote competitive fuels in order to drive those profits Down. To believe otherwise said Haskell is sort of equivalent to believing in the tooth  to the argument that Only the giant Oil companies can provide the capital to meet goals for Coal and uranium let me make this response those who believe in the marketplace have to Trust the Market place. Assuming a demand for competing fuels the capital will appear to Supply that demand. If we believe that Competition is a Good thing let us put that conviction to work. If we Are wary of excessive concentrations of Power let us halt this disturb ing concentration before it grows still larger. Such total disruption of an efficient and All this has nothing to do with vertical highly competitive Industry. But enough is divestiture which involves breaking up enough. And horizontally speaking the the great Oil companies internally. No con concentration is quite enough As it is. Vinci no Case has been made to support