News stories from Sunday March 6, 1977

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

Besides the 42 callers who managed to get through on the "Ask President Carter" radio broadcast Saturday there were an estimated 9 million to 9.5 million attempts by Americans who tried and failed. The estimate of the total calls was given by officials of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in an analysis of the program's technical intricacies. Many of the millions of calls originated in Washington, Chicago, Houston and Duluth, Minn. [New York Times] More than $2 million in campaign contributions was given to members of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees the last time they sought re-election by special interest groups representing business, labor and professional associations. On the average, political action groups gave nearly $42,000 to each of the 49 men and women on the two key financial committees. [New York Times] The rescue of a miner from a flooded coal mine in Tower City, Pa., was made this morning after a night of confusing statements by federal and state officials. The survivor, Ronald Adley, 37, was trapped for nearly five days but apparently was in good condition. The confirmed number of dead rose to four. Five other miners were still missing. [New York Times] The war of water politics in the West has been intensified by President Carter's controversial attempt to stop funding for 19 water projects in a drought year. Five of the six most expensive projects cut from the budget proposed last January by President Ford are in the West. Western governors and members of Congress are now lobbying to have project funds restored and to prevent further cuts in projects. [New York Times] The present energy policies of the industrialized countries will bring about a new energy crisis with the oil-producing Arab nations, energy experts predicted at a Columbia University conference. Under present policies the industrialized countries will be forced by 1985 to import 35 million barrels of oil a day, up from 24 million barrels in 1975, said Ulf Lantzke, the International Energy Agency's executive director. This, he said, could approximate the limit of available world oil supplies. He estimated that at most the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would increase their capacity by 1985 to only 40 million barrels a day, or 25 percent. [New York Times] Head-on competition is developing between the American Stock Exchange in New York and the Chicago Board Options Exchange over options that are traded on both, the country's two largest options exchanges. Options are the right to buy -- or sell -- an underlying stock at a predetermined price and time. The fight started when Amex recently said that it would start trading options in the National Semiconductor Corporation, which was the Chicago board's third most active issue in 1976. The Chicago exchange immediately responded by announcing it would start trading six of the Amex options. [New York Times] The lenient treatment that the Securities and Exchange Commission has accorded to companies that disclosed bribes and questionable payments made abroad is being withdrawn. The S.E.C.'s enforcement officials believe that there is not much to be gained by continuing the voluntary program, under which 360 companies have come forward in the last 21 months, and they have begun attaching severe conditions to their offer. [New York Times] Rumanian officials believe that the country's industrial capacity was apparently seriously impaired by Friday's earthquake. One of them estimated that it would take four or five years to return to normal production. Meanwhile, bulldozers and cranes in Bucharest knocked down badly damaged buildings. In removing the rubble many more victims of the disaster were found. [New York Times] Israel "will do its utmost to help advance the cause of peace," Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said as he arrived in Washington for a meeting with President Carter, His discussions at the White House tomorrow and Tuesday will mark the start of the Carter administration's second round of exploratory talks with Israeli and Arab leaders that it hopes will lead to a new Geneva conference on the Middle East in the summer or fall. [New York Times]