Letter to the Chairman, Federal Power Commission, in Response to the National Power Survey Report.

[ Released December 14, 1964. Dated December 12, 1964 ]

Dear Mr. Chairman:

I have your letter of December 11 with which you transmitted the report of the National Power Survey undertaken by the Federal Power Commission in cooperation with all of the segments of the nation's electric power industry.

It seems to me that the survey represents a very constructive step in directing the attention of the government and of all of the various interested industry groups to our greatly increasing power needs of the future. A doubling or tripling of the electricity requirements in this country by the year 1980 presents a challenge to the nation that can and must be met.

It is obvious that the building of the Great Society rests, in part, on an abundant supply of low cost energy. The experience of the past few decades demonstrates conclusively how the standard of living of American citizens has continued to rise as we have developed greater supplies of electrical energy.

I think it is most significant that the Commission's survey was a cooperative effort between the Commission and the industry it regulates. The encouragement of greater cooperation and coordination among the nation's 3600 individual electric power systems should result in the economies of large-scale operation benefiting the consumer in every section of the country without regard to whether they are served by privately-owned companies, by municipally-owned systems or by cooperatives.

The Commission is to be congratulated for its initiative in undertaking the survey, and I share the Commission's hope that the results of the survey will benefit the nation, the nation's consumers and the nation's power industry.

Sincerely,

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

[Honorable Joseph C. Swidler, Chairman, Federal Power Commission, Washington, D.C.]