Senate Approves Measure to Remove Federal Natural Gas Price Regulations

The Senate yesterday handed President Carter his greatest energy victory since August 1977 by approving a natural gas deregulation compromise which had been stalled for seventeen months.

The bill, which is a product of difficult negotiations between Congress and Energy Secretary James R. Schlesinger '50, provides for the lifting of most federal natural gas price controls by 1985. The bill now goes to the House.

House leaders hope to combine the gas bill with other, less controversial parts of the President's energy plan and vote on the entire package just before the scheduled mid-October Congressional adjournment. The House passed most other parts of Carter's energy package in August 1977.

Passed Gas

Supporters of the bill say it will allow enough new gas to be found to reduce oil imports by about 1.5 million barrels a day by 1985. They also claim that the measure will add only about $25 a year to the average family's heating bill.

Liberal opponents counter that the additional heating costs for the average family will be $100 or more annually. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the proposal will cost consumers who heat with gas about $16 billion in higher bills through 1985.

The White House had lobbied heavily in favor of the legislation. Administration officials said the measure was the most important surviving portion of the energy package President Carter submitted to Congress in April 1977.

Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.), chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, said yesterday the compromise "will provide the incentives for increased production," thereby enabling the United States to ease its heavy dependence on imported oil.

However, Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), one of the bill's leading opponents, said it was a "prescription for disaster" and accused the Administration of ignoring the major consumer, farm, and labor groups opposing the bill just to obtain a long-denied Congressional victory.