In the United States, imports have dropped by half in the past couple of years. Domestic production is up, and consumption is down. The administration uses this improvement to buttress its case for dissolving the Energy Department. But the appearance of less vulnerability to supply interruptions is deceptive and dangerous. Some important changes in U.S. energy use have occurred. The price of oil has been decontrolled, the strategic petroleum reserve is finally being filed, industry is using energy much more efficiently and the gas guzzler is an endangered species. But the price of natural gas is still artificially low, consumers still have no reliable source of help for reducing energy use in their homes, mass transit compared with of other advanced nations is terrible, and the lack of a substantial gasoline tax keeps that unchanged. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration argues that higher energy prices have led to energy conservation and that there is therefore no reason for further federal support of research and other conservation programs. But the real issue is how much of what would be economically beneficial is not happening, and will not happen, under current policies. Do most types of energy use technologies for supply and distribution, consumer information, manufacturing processes and the rest-reflect the reality of expensive energy or the history of cheap energy? The answer varies by sector. Large businesses with access to expertise and capital have adjusted well. Most other sectors have not in residential and commercial buildings, which consume a quarter of all the energy used in America. Only a tiny fraction of the economically desirable savings is being captured. In short, a good beginning has been made, but it is only a beginning. To abandon conservation programs and dismantle research efforts now is to save small amounts of federal dollars at a very large longer-range cost to the economy. And hopeful talk about the end of the energy crisis ignores the painful lessons of the past decade.