Preface

The Energy Policy Project was initiated by the Ford Foundation in 1971 to explore alternative national energy policies. This book, Competition in The U.S. Energy Industry, is one of the series of studies commissioned by the Project. It is presented here as a carefully prepared contribution by the author to today's public discussion about energy companies. It is our hope that each of these special reports will stimulate further thinking and questioning in the specific areas it addresses. At the very most, however, each special report deals with only a part of the energy puzzle; the Energy Policy Project's final report, A Time to Choose, which was published in October 1974, attempts to integrate these parts into a comprehensible whole, setting forth the energy policy options available to the nation as we see them.

This book, like the others in the series, has been reviewed by scholars and experts in the field not otherwise associated with the Project in order to be sure that differing points of view were considered. With each book in the series, we offer reviewers the opportunity of having their comments published in an appendix to the volume. (See page 395.)

Competition in The U.S. Energy Industry is the author's report to the Ford Foundation's Energy Policy Project and neither the Foundation, its Energy Policy or the Project's Advisory Board have assumed the role of passing judgment on its contents or conclusions. We have expressed our views in A Time To Choose.

S. David Freeman
Director
Energy Policy Project