Abraham Warns of Energy Crisis

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Monday that high-energy prices were damaging the U.S. economy, and he linked the rising energy costs to the risk of a recession, news services reported.

He also warned the United States is facing the worst energy crisis since the 1970s.

Abraham is part of a White House energy task force that met Monday with President Bush to plan how to boost domestic energy supplies, reduce foreign oil imports and promote energy conservation.

The Energy Department said both crude-oil inventories and gasoline stocks are 6% to 7% lower that what they traditionally have been this time of year.

The United States is the world's biggest energy consumer, using about 20 million barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products each day.

On Monday, California's power grid managers ordered a new round of rolling electricity blackouts. And for the first time, southern California was affected, news services reported. (See the Executive Briefing.)

According to Reuters, Abraham has warned these blackouts are not isolated to one state. Instead, he said, it is a growing problem facing the entire nation.

Over the weekend, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries decided to slash crude supplies by 1 million barrels a day in an attempt to halt a slide in prices. Still, the average pump price per gallon for diesel fuel fell 1.4 cents last week to 139.2 cents. (Click here for the full story.)

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