n527  0132  18 Nov 80
 
BC-DAVIS-11-18
    By Tom Furlong
    (c) 1980 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service)
     CHICAGO-A member of Ronald's Reagan's energy transition team says
it's ''ridiculous'' to believe he will be able to simply abolish the
Department of Energy and its many functions.
    ''Reagan can't get rid of the Department of Energy, at least not
right away,'' said W. Kenneth Davis, vice president of the Bechtel
Power Corp. ''That's ridiculous.
    ''You have to remember that three-quarters of what the DOE does
relates to the production of nuclear weapons. It's very low profile.
    ''You can't just take a meat-ax approach to the department,'' he
added.
    Davis, an ardent admirer of Reagan, is in Chicago this week as
president-elect of 50,000-member American Institute of Chemical
Engineers, holding its 73d annual meeting.
    Some of the primary functions of the DOE, Davis pointed out, are
nuclear and weapons development, regulation of the oil and gas
industry, information dissemination and alternate energy research.
    Energy research, one of the DOE's more controversial turfs, is on
the hit list of many conservatives, but it may not be easy to get rid
of that either, Davis noted.
    ''A lot of people think that research is nonsense,'' he said, ''but
I don't know if you can get rid of it politically.''
    That doesn't mean Reagan will be unable to have an immediate impact
on important energy matters, said Davis, a former UCLA professor
who's a lifelong member of the Sierra Club. All he has to do is
provide strong leadership, the Bechtel exec said.
    For example, he noted, key regulations governing the energy industry
can be changed or abolished overnight by presidential decree.
    For another, negative attitudes about nuclear power would change
''within 24 hours'' if Reagan as president were to make a major
speech supporting atomic energy.
    For another, he could easily put an end to the ''nonsense''
bickering between the DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency by
simply ordering his agency chiefs to cooperate with one other.
     Like many energy executives, Davis believes the EPA's air pollution
standards are unwarranted and discourage domestic energy production.
    Though the DOE can't be abolished, Davis said it could be
reorganized under other agencies, the way it used to be.
    ''But that will take time,'' he noted. ''Reagan is going to have to
appoint a Secretary of Energy.''
    Davis' top choice for that slot would be an oil company head,
someone who most of all is known as an able administrator.
    He would prefer Harold J. Haynes, a fellow San Franciscan who, at
age 55, will retire next May as chairman of Standard Oil Co.
(California).
    But Davis doubts such a choice is possible because oil companies are
so unpopular these days. ''I don't know if he could be confirmed
because it's such a political thing. And I don't know if he would be
willing to brave the political flak.''
    Davis has been a vice president of Bechtel Power Corp. since 1973.
Bechtel Power is one of the two principal operating units of the
Bechtel group, a huge, privately held, California-based engineering
and construction firm that has a big stake in the energy business.
    ENDIT FURLONG
    
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