Arthur Hailey - Overload

He left the sentence unfinished as the commissioner nodded. "An interesting point, Mr. Goldman. One, I suppose, that many of us hadn't thought of."

Birdsong, who had been standing impatiently during the exchange, resumed his attack. "You tell us, Goldman, that solar power won't be ready until the next century. Why should we believe you?"

"You don't have to." Nim slipped back into his earlier manner, making his contempt for Birdsong clear. "You can believe or disbelieve anything you want. But a consensus of the best technical judgments, made by experts, says that large-scale use of solar electricity is twenty-plus years away; even then it may not fulfill expectations. That's why, in the meantime, there must be coal-burning plants like Tunipah-and in a lot more places than just Tunipah-to meet the coming crisis."

Birdsong sneered, "So we're back to that fake, make-believe, phony crisis."

"When it happens," Nim told him heatedly, "you can read those words back and eat them."

The commissioner reached for his gavel to command order, then hesitated; perhaps curious to see what would happen next, he let his band fall back.

Birdsong's face reddened, his mouth tightened angrily.

"I won't be eating any words. You will!” be spat at Nim. "You'll choke on words-you and that capitalist gang at Golden State Power. Words, words, words! From these hearings, which those of us who stand against you will keep going as long as we can, and from other hearings like them. After that, still more words because we'll drag this Tunipah boondoggle through the courts, and tie you up with appeals, injunctions, and every other legal blockage in the book. Then if that isn't enough we'll raise new objections, so the whole cycle will start again and, if we have to, we'll go on for twenty years. The people will stop your profiteering schemes, and the people will win!"

The p & lfp leader paused, breathing heavily, then added, "So maybe solar energy will get here first after all, Mister Goldman. Because let me tell you, you won't get those coal-burning plants. Not Tunipah or any others. Not now or ever."

As the commissioner hesitated again, seeming fascinated by the verbal duel, a burst of applause erupted in part of the spectator section. At the same moment, Nim exploded. He slammed a fist down hard on an arm of the witness chair, then leaped to his feet. Eyes blazing, he faced Davey Birdsong.

"So maybe you will stop those plants being built-Tunipah and others-just the way you say. It happened with nuclear; it can happen again with coal. And if you do it, it will be because this crazy, self-defeating system gives limitless power to egomaniacs and kooks and charlatans like you."

Suddenly the hearing room had fallen silent. Nim's voice rose as he continued. "But spare us any sanctimonious drive], Birdsong, about you representing the people. You don't. We represent the people-ordinary, decent, normal-living people who rely on power companies like ours to light and heat their homes, and keep factories working, and do the million other things you'll cut people off from if you and your kind have their selfish, short-sighted way."

Nim swung toward the bench ' directly addressing the commissioner and administrative law judge. "What's needed now, in this state and most others, is intelligent compromise. Compromise between the 'no-growth-at-any-pricers' like the Sequoia Club and Birdsong and those who call for maximum growth and damn the environmental Well, I-and the company I work for-admit the need for compromise, and urge it on ourselves and others. We recognize there are no easy, simple choices, which is why we seek the middle ground, namely: Let there be some growth, but for God's sake grant us the means-electrically-to accommodate it."

He turned back to Birdsong. "What you'll do for people in the end is make them suffer. Suffer from desperate shortages, from massive unemployment, from all the big and small things which won't work without electric power-all of it when the crisis hits, a crisis which isn't phony but is real, a crisis which will sweep across North America, and probably a lot of other places in the world."

Nim asked the silent, surprised figure in front of him, "And where will you be then, Birdsong? In hiding, probably. Hiding from the people who'll have found out what you really are-a cheat and faker who misled them."

Even while speaking, Nim knew he had gone too far, had broken recklessly the normal constraints of public hearings, as well as restrictions placed on him by GSP & L. Perhaps he had even given Birdsong grounds for claiming libel. Yet another part of Nim's mind argued that what he had said needed to be said, that there were limits to patience and reasonableness, and that someone had to speak out plainly, fearlessly, accepting whatever consequences came.

He stormed on, "You sound off about forty percent conservation, Birdsong. That isn't conservation; that's deprivation. It would mean a whole new way of life, and a damn sight poorer one.

"Okay, there are some who say we ought to have lower standards of living, all of us, that we live too well and should be deprived. Well, maybe that's true, maybe not. But either way, that kind of decision for change isn't for power companies like GSP & L to make. Our responsibility is to maintain the living standards which people-through their elected governments-tell us that they want. It's why we'll go on protecting those standards, Birdsong, until ordered otherwise-but ordered officially, not by overinflated, self-appointed pecksniffs like you."

As Nim paused for breath, the commissioner inquired coolly, "Have you quite finished, Mr. Goldman?"

Nim swung to face the bench. "No, Mr. Chairman, I haven't. While I'm on my feet there are a couple of other things I'd like to say."

"Mr. Chairman, if I might suggest a recess. It was Oscar O'Brien, competing for attention.

Nim said firmly, "I intend to finish, Oscar." He observed that everyone at the press table was scribbling and the official stenotypist had his head down, fingers racing.

“There will be no recess for the moment," the commissioner said, and O'Brien subsided unhappily, with a shrug. Birdsong was still standing, silently, but a balf-smile now replaced his surprised expression. Perhaps be was reasoning that Nim's outhurst had harmed GSP & L's cause and was helping p & lfp. Well, Nim thought, whether that was true or not, having gone this far he was damned if he would get fainthearted. He addressed the commissioner and the administrative law judge, both watching him curiously.

"This entire exercise, Mr. Chairman-and I mean this hearing and others like it-is a futile, time-wasting, costly charade. It's futile because it takes years to accomplish what ought to be done in weeks, and sometimes even longer to do nothing. It's time-wasting because those of us who are real producers, not paper-eating bureaucrats, could spend the endless hours we're required to be here a helluva lot more usefully to the companies we work for and society as a whole. It's outrageously costly because taxpayers and power users-who Birdsong claims to represent, but doesn't-get stuck with paying millions for this crazy, coun-terproductive, comic-opera pseudo-system. And it's a charade because we pretend that what we are doing here makes sense and reason when all of us on our side of the fence know damn well it doesn't."

The commissioner's face flushed crimson. Decisively, this time, he reached for his gavel and slammed it down. Glaring at Nim, be pronounced, "That is all I will allow on that subject, but I give you due warning, Mr. Goldman: I intend to read the transcript carefully and consider other action later." then to Birdsong with equal coldness: "Have you concluded your questioning of this witness?"

"Yessir!" Birdsong grinned broadly. "If you ask me, he just pissed in his own nest."