This volume, like others in the series of public policy analyses published by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government, is intended to provide information that is helpful in understanding major policy alternatives facing contemporary government. Shortly after the 197374 energy crisis, when questions concerning the future of the oil industry were becoming a matter of acute political controversy, the Rose Institute published the booklet Government, the Economy and the Oil Industry. This publication was followed by another, entitled A Study of Oil Industry Earnings. Dr. Sherman Clark, a consulting economist in Palo Alto, was the principal contributor to both these publications.