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Senator Child's December 11th. Yeah, mhm from Washington. A five minute interview with US Senator Lawton Child's of Florida. Now the first question. Senator, what damaging effects is the fuel shortage having on Florida and its economy? Well, I think it's early now, but already the psychology of it or what's going to happen, is having some effects.

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I think the worst kind of problem right now is the fact that people don't know. Are we going to have rationing? If so, what type? Can we go to Florida or must we cancel that off? Its the uncertainty about it that I think we're already feeling, And I think the quicker we could get the decisions out that we have to make and then people will be able to make their plans accordingly.

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But right now, I talked to a gas dealer yesterday in Florida that deals in bulk products, and he told me that he has all kind of calls from friends of his who are calling from people up north who want to know if they can buy some gas now and reserve it till the time they come down here and be able to use it so they know they'll have gas.

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Well, this is that tremendous uncertainty. I understand that this week you propose to the head of the Federal Energy Administration, William Simon, that a sticker system be instituted as an efficient alternative to gas rationing. How would this system work? Well, basically, the way it would work.

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It would just say that, uh, you can't drive your car one day a week, uh, to start with. And if that doesn't do it, then you couldn't drive your car two days a week. And that sticker would go on the back of your car on the windshield or something.

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And it would just have Monday or Tuesday, and everyone would know that car couldn't be on the road that day. I think if you take 1/7 of the cars off the road, certainly you're going to reduce tremendously the gasoline use. But maybe you might even have to go two days.

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But if you had that and I knew I couldn't drive my car two days a week, I'm going to make the arrangements by car, pool or otherwise, to see that I get to work those days. But I'm going to be able to plan the rest of my week if I wanted to go to Florida.

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I know that I could go to Florida and I think, as opposed to a coupon system where everybody is going to get 12 gallons or 15 gallons a week and then you're trading in the coupons and then you're setting up this tremendous bureaucracy that's necessary to issue the coupons and to hear the appeals and determine whether I'm a doctor or a lawyer, I need more gas.

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Whether I'm a salesman, all of that is just going to be so much more problems, uh, and and so much horrendous to administer that by just doing it, setting up the days that you could use the cars and putting that sticker. It could be done so much simpler.

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I think Israel has done that, and it's worked well there. Senator um, why don't you favor the immediate drilling of oil off Florida's coast as a means of combating the energy crisis? Well, it's not even the question of the immediate drilling of the oil. What I want to do is see that we know that we're going to be able to do it safely.

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That we make the proper studies to know that it's not going to cause great damage in this instance, not just to the environment but to Florida's economy. It's going to take two years and to explore, to determine where the oil is, where it commercially, you should drill.

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And what I've tried to do is get them that during this exploratory time. And that has to be done no matter what the crisis is, Run the baseline studies and so that before you go into actual production, you know what the inventory and the environment is and what the damage will be and whether it will justify the drilling and whether it would endanger Florida's economy.

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Senator, What is Congress doing to find alternative energy sources to meet the long range problem? Or is Congress just dealing with stopgap measures? Well, I think right now Congress perhaps, is dealing, uh, more with the long range situations and setting up the research $20 billion bill we just passed for research.

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Uh, and I think we're doing something on that. I think right now some of the things we should be doing or the more immediate things we should be determining right now. How do we get Detroit to start making smaller cars? How do we determine that we're getting an engine that will give us the most mileage?

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We know that that hasn't been done in the fast. Excuse me, Senator. Those are the kind of things that I think we need to be studying now. Thank you, Senator. That's all the time we have today from Washington. This has been an interview in the capital with US Senator Lawton Child's bread.