News stories from Saturday February 16, 1974
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Faced with rising protests and threatened station shutdowns, the Federal Energy Office authorized a penny per gallon price increase for retail dealers whose gasoline allocations have been reduced by 15% or more. The increase, effective March 1, is expected to apply to about half of the 225,000 retail dealers across the country and will be in addition to the end-of-the-month price adjustment normally allowed under price controls to compensate dealers for their cost fluctuations during the month. [New York Times]
- Directly or indirectly, the nation's energy shortage is prompting serious new studies of suburban transportation systems and a rash of operating transit experiments in a variety of the country's little known but populous suburban communities. Suburbanites are studying, for the first time, new systems of transportation, reconsidering old ones and exploring expansion of existing transit. A growing number of towns have under way new transit operations. [New York Times]
- Energy officials of the Nixon administration have joined with Washington lobbyists for the coal mining and electric utility industries in an attempt to thwart House passage of a bill imposing the first federal environmental restrictions on strip mining. The secret maneuvering, involving the industry lobbyists and officials of the Interior and Treasury Departments and the Federal Energy Office, was disclosed last week when a "confidential" coal industry memorandum came into the hands of environmentalist groups that are supporting the strong measure pending in the House. [New York Times]
- The Egyptian and Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministers arrived in Washington for talks with Secretary of State Kissinger, presumably about the Arab oil embargo against the United States and possible Israeli-Syrian negotiations. The two ministers were sent to Washington following a two-day meeting in Algeria, which ended Thursday, of the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Algeria. Mr., Kissinger conferred in Key Biscayne, Fla., with President Nixon before flying back to Washington for the meeting with the Arab Foreign Ministers, Ismail Fahmy of Egypt and Omar Sakkaf of Saudi Arabia. [New York Times]
- Anti-government insurgents shelled Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, again just as the United States Embassy was holding a ceremony to announce its aid for those who were wounded or made homeless in the shelling last Monday. An early estimate after yesterday's shelling put casualties at 8 dead and 50 wounded. The shells Monday killed nearly 200 people and wounded at least that many. The clandestine radio of the Communist-led insurgents, which has been making propaganda broadcasts since the campaign of terror-shelling began last December, called once again "on all brother countrymen in Phnom Penh to quickly evacuate the city to avoid accidents that may be caused by our attacks." [New York Times]