Carter's Clash With Congress on Gas Plan

WASHINGTON, May 14 — While Jimmy Carter was truing in choppy waters off Virginia Beach today, the reverberations of his collision with Congress last week over a standby gasoline rationing plan were still being heard on

Capitol Hill.

News Analysis

House Republicans took the floor this morning to accuse him of being “un‐Presidential” in his unusually sharp‐tongued criticism of the House vote that killed the plan, while Democratic leaders, including Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., the Speaker, sought to minimize the political fallout from the President's strong words.

“Nothing but the usual criticisms written by the Republican National Committee,” Mr. O'Neill said dryly as Representative John J. Rhodes, the House minority leader, and others rose to rebut the President's attack.

Some Democrats Surprised

Other Democrats, however, privately expressed surprise that the President had made such a divisive issue out of a standby plan that had left even its supporters unenthusiastic. One member, declining to be identified, described his action as “Presidential overkill” and pre dieted that Mr. Carter would regret having made such a strong attack on the opponeitts of the plan, who included 106 Democrats.

But, it Mr. Carter has bad any second thoughts about the political wisdom of his sharp statement, it was not evident today in conversations with his aided at the White House. On .the contrary, they seemed delighted that he had spoken out strongly against what one aide described as. “a Congress petrified of its own shadow.”

The “political timidity” of, Congress, they predicted, will bacome a standard part of Mr. Carter's campaign campaign in his 1980 re‐election drive. It is, one of the ways, his aides hope; that the President, despite his incumbency, can preserve his appeal as an “outsider” prepared to take on the Washington establishment and the special interests that lobby so effectively on Capitol Hill.

Criticism Called Useful

“There's no grand scheme to run against Congress in 1980,” said Stuart E. Eizenstat the President's. domestic afliars adviser, who led the lobbying effort for the rationing plan, “but we do feel it is useful criticize Congress when it acts against what we see as the national interest”

The President, according, to his aides, has become incteasingly frustrated in recent months it Congress's refusal to tickle politically sensitive issues. Such as containment of hospital costs, energy, tax reform and the proposed real wage insurance, which White House lobbyists now concede is dead. In each case, the Administration's proposals were announced with fanfare, but were shot down or ignored by Congress.

“The voices of the special‐interest lobbies have become so dominant,” Jody Powell, the White House press secretary, said last week, “that most Congressmen are afraid of any vote that might alienate them”

Cause of Harsh Words

The case of the standby rationing plan was especially frustrating Or Mr. Carter. another aide said, “,because Congress first directed him to submit a plan and then used to approve it.”

“The result was to leave the President looking weak and indecisive,” the aide said.

It was this predicament that irritated Mr. Carter and provoked his harsh words, White House officials said. They added that the President's comments “go beyond this case to the whole problem of getting Congress to deal with the tough issues.”

Not surprisingly, on Capitol Hill they see things differently. Even members of the Democratic leadership feel that the White House is frequently inept and unschooled in its lobbying efforts. The standby rationing plan was no exception, they said.

Enough Blame for All

Representative John Brademas of Indiana, for example, complained today that the White House did not begin serious discussion of the plan at the regular leadership meetings until May 1 and then negotiated significant changes in it “up to the last minute.” The Democratic majority whip added that he was unsure whether the President's remarks on 1 Friday represented “genuine anger on his part or an attempt to shift the blame onto Congress's shoulders.”

“There's more than enough blame to go around,” he said.

Other Democrats, including supporters of the Administration's plan, said that they felt the President could do himself more political harm than good by excessive criticism of Congress, especially as a campaign device. It would tend to divide the party, they said, and even encourage other Democrats to enter the race for the nomination.

“Running against Congress may have worked for Harry Truman,” one Democrat said, referring to the 1948 Presidential race, “but that was a Republican Congress, and Jimmy Carter is no Harry Truman.”