2766.     RALPH H. D.  Importance of Domestic Industry Stressed in O’Mahoney Report.  Oil Gas Jour., vol. 45, No. 40, 1947, pp. 38-39.

        According to the final report of the Senate Petroleum Resources Committee, the first principle of American petroleum policy should be to sustain our domestic supply of petroleum and to maintain the American system of competitive free enterprise at home and abroad.  The Nation faces 2 alternatives:  (1) To await with hope the discovery of enough petroleum within our boundaries to satisfy our future military requirements, and meanwhile to depend upon foreign oil and trust that war will not cut off our imports; or (2) to take steps to guarantee an adequate domestic supply by promoting the search for new deposits of petroleum within the United States itself and the continental shelf and to continue to present program looking to the manufacture of synthetic liquid fuels to supplement our domestic crude supply.  Government facilities can be utilized to promote research in the manufacture of synthetic liquid fuels, but without permitting Government competition with private industry.  The committee recommends “bold steps” in the direction of synthetic production as being the answer to national defense and to fears that we are running out of oil, and points out that natural gas, shale, coal, and lignite are available in huge quantities and can be liquefied at costs not too far above that of refining crude petroleum.