.H Summer Daily Summer Edition of THE MICHIGAN DAILY Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Thursday, July 19, 1973 News Phone: 764-0552 Senate disaster THE OIL LOBBY won a great victory Tuesday when their bill authorizing the licensing of the Alaskan oil pipeline and the immunization of the project from further challenges in court was passed by the Senate. The vote allows an ecologically questionable project to proceed but leaves environmentalists without re- course in the courts. The action not only is ecologically hazardous and a dangerous legal precedent but also may not help the parties that need the oil the most, the fuel-starved Mid- west. THE ADMINISTRATION-backed bill allows a consort- ium of oil companies to build a 789-mile pipeline across mountains and tundra from the North Slope oil fields to the ice-free port of Valdez on Alaska's southern shore. From there the oil would be moved by tanker to West Coast refineries. The opponents of the Alaska route argued that a rupture of the pipeline in the sensitive tundra area in Alaska could have permanent and disastrous effects on its ecology. They also charged that widespread oil spills from the tankers transporting the oil might have simi- lar effects. These environmentalists preferred an all land route through Canada. THAT THIS BILL was passed, backed by the rich oil lobby and pushed by their powerful friends in the Senate, is bad enough. But the action most painful was the vote to immunize the project from further action in the courts. The National Environmental Policy Act mandates that an impact statement by the Interior department be made on all projects in ecologically sensitive areas. If environmentalists believe that the statement is insuf- ficient, they may take the case to court. The action taken in the Senate Tuesday by a 49-48 vote prohibits court review of the imoact statement. The precedent taken is a dangerous one. There is real doubt as to the Administration's sincerity towards the enforcement of environmental legislation. The re- view of the courts, as provided in the NEPA, is an insur- ance against conflicting interests and the power of cam- paign contributions. THE ROUTE OF THE Alaskan pipeline is also disad- vantageous to the Midwestern states that need the oil the most. The oil from the Alaskan route will be more costly and less available for the Midwest than if it came directly from Canada. Oil companies may find shipping surpluses to Japan more profitable than transporting it by land to the Midwest. Nearly all the midwestern senators including Sen. Phil Hart (D-Mich.) were against the Alaskan route and only two favored the restriction on the court. But, our "muscle in Washington", Sen. Robert Griffin (R-Mich.) was, of course, one of those Senators who put the oil interests ahead of ecology and their state. The bill now goes to the House where, hopefully, the court restriction, at least, will be deleted. If this dan- gerous amendment becomes law, every vested interst will also attempt to circumvent court review. The re- sult will destroy the heart of the NEPA as well as the en- vironment. '--. SAN S FF f Wi i d etch&AE 1 W4V6J4(,° ANYA C am- 'L " a " tW eV -~ / too- ' (' td4A44,\TdA THE MI.WAU KEE J Jt"RNAI Watergate might produce good results-perhaps even By CHARLES STEIN Scene: The Senate Watergate hearings. H. R. Haldeman, for- mer White House aide is on the stand undergoing intense question- ing. Though the interrogation is tough, the cool Haldeman shows no sign of cracking. Suddenly from the back of the chamber comes a voice screaming "I did it, I did it." The TV cam- eras quickly pan to the center aisle to reveal a man running towards the front of the chamber. Aghast, we recognize the man as none other than the President of the United States - Richard Milhous Nixon. Dropping to his knees in front of the horrified senators, the Presi- dent, panting, sobbing blurts out his confession. "It was me, I ordered the bug- ging. I told them to get Ells- berg. All the lying, all the dirty tricks, I was responsible for all of them, all of them." Struggling to continue his voice barely more than a whimper, Nix- on adds, "But I didn't mean to do anything wrong. I just wanted to win. All those years of losing, all those nasty comments. I couldn't let it happen again. Can't you un- derstand! With that the President's body goes limp. He buries his face in his hands and begins weeping un- controllably. The cameras fade to close. For those of us whose primary interest in the Watergate hearings is to see Richard Nixon hang, the above Perry Mason-style scenario would be the perfect conclusion to the whole affair. Driven by a basic aversion to his administration and encouraged by the words of John Dean, we listen to each day of lengthy testimony, waiting for that one piece of evi- dence that will link the Watergate crimes to the man at the top. The recently uncovered fact that the answer to the Watergate riddle may lie on a piece of tape has buoyed our spirits which had been slightly dampened by the words of Mitchell and Moore. How beautifully ironic for Nix- on to caught by a bugging system he had personally installed to cap- ture his own vain sense of per- sonal history. Yet it is by no means a certainty even at this point that the truth concerning Nixon's role will ever come out. For the moment the tapes re- main part of the Presidential documents the chief executive has pledged not to release. And who is to say that the tapes themselves have not already been "deep six- ed" by some Nixon loyalist. Such an action, while attracting a great deal of suspicion, would at the very least preserve, the Presi- dent's fragile legal innocence. If, however, we look beyond our sadistic desires for- just a mo- ment, we realize that the Water- gate hearings are likely to produce a number of significant results, event if Mr. Big escapes with his skin. For starters, the perpetrators of the specific crimes most likely will end up behind bars. With them hopefully will go the White House paranoia and battlefield pyschology that made a Water- gate - influenced election possible. In the area of election ethics and' financing, Watergate is likely to generate some tougher watchdog legislation for future campaigns. Campaign records will hopefully be examined with far greater scrutiny and a special watch will be kept to see that plumbers' ac- tivities be restricted solely 'to the White House pipes and toilets. The Congress, long under the ex- ecutive's thumb on questions of impoundment and war - making power, has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in post-Water- gate America. With their setting of a withdraw- al date in Cambodia and their re- cent rejection of a Nixon nominee, the legislators have re-established a balance between the branches of government. A similar balance has develop- ed in the White House's relation- ship with the press. A partially operative Ron Ziegler can no long- er blast the press corps as slan- derous and hope to win in a battle of credibility. Messrs. Woodward and Berstein have seen to that. Finally the Watergate scandals -emphasis on the plural- have produced a healthy mistrust of government among the American people, 71 per cent of whom, think a hanging the President was involved in at least some aspect of the cover-up. In a society where a skillful and popular president has shown he can get awayawithbalmost any- thing, a cynical public" is often the most effective tool we have in battling governmental excesses. Thus as a. result of Watergate we may conceivably see a number of reforms that would otherwise have been impossible under a Nix- on administration. Watching him suffer But as for that dramatic presi- dential confession - well we may just have to wait until it makes the rounds of the late show. Charles Stein is co-editor of The Daily. Letters to The Daily should be mailed to the Editorial Di- rector or delivered to Mary Rafferty in the Student Pub- lications business office. in the Michigan Daily building. Letters should be typed, double-spaced and normally should not exceed 250 words. The Editorial Direc- tors reserve the" right to edit all letters submitted.