Power Shortage

Report Outline
Present Electric Power Resources and Needs
Future Requirements for Electric Power
Questions of Public Policy on Power

Present Electric Power Resources and Needs

Tight Supply-Demand Situation Since the War

More electricity is being produced in the United States today than at the peak of the war effort. The electric utility industry is engaged in the greatest expansion program of its history. Government power projects have programmed additions to capacity that would double their power output by 1953. Nevertheless, President Truman told Congress in his message July 27, at the opening of the present special session: “There is an acute shortage of power in this country now.”

The Congress should reconsider its recent actions which cut sharply into our national electric power policy.…I am therefore resubmitting to the Congress appropriation requests for certain power projects which must be provided right away.

The President had previously condemned Congress as “reckless and irresponsible” for refusing at its regular session to authorize an expansion of Tennessee Valley Authority power facilities. And public utility executives had been told that, great as was their four-year $6 billion program to raise the capacity of privately-owned plants by 35 per cent, there was growing recognition “that this is not enough, that as the American economy expands the power industry must double and triple its capacity to generate electric power.”