Recently you published letters by professors Sjostrom and Karlson on this subject.

There are two issues of particular interest: (a) what have the profits of the major oil companies been doing lately, and (b) are there drawbacks to a policy emphasis on cheap oil as our main form of energy?

My sources show me the revenues of the majors was $7.2 billion in the last three months of 1990. That is 70 percent up from the same period in 1989.

I have difficulty believing such a huge increase results from accidental misreading of the markets by these companies, and suspect prices charged at the pump do not reflect crude cost.

ave the oil companies benefited excessively from the Gulf War? You decide. This relates directly to the second issue, our oil policy.

In the early 1980s that policy, along with international events, brought cheap oil which was good for heavy petroleum consumers.

It did no harm to the major oil companies since their profits depend on their margin, not the absolute cost of the product.

The oil economics of the 1980s have, however, greatly reduced exploration and production in the United States. Our dependence on foreign oil has increased a great deal.

Federal policy has discouraged conservation, resisted development of alternate sources of energy and led to the decimation of local economies in oil producing states.

Also, the federal government has ignored the environmental consequences of oil as an energy source. A good example is our response to the greenhouse global warming problem.

Other industrialized governments have proposed action, but the United States resists. Without us any environmental plans are useless because we are by far the greatest atmospheric polluters on the planet.

Does this policy make sense when oil is a limited resource and our economic competition is rapidly developing energy alternatives and methods for high efficiency of fuel use?

Who is going to win in the end? I also regret the present funding situation prevents proper course offerings at NIU.

Maybe otherwise we could have some integrative courses that ask questions never raised in our specialist offerings.

Paul Loubre

Associate professor

Geology