ELECTION UPHOLDS STATUS QUO Congressional committees in charge of science and technology remain largely unchanged

David J. Hanson C&EN Washington

The national elections undoubtedly will have an impact on the future political plans of the Democrats

and Republicans, but the foundations in Congress that uphold the science and technology infrastructure have remained unchanged. Neither retirements nor elec­tion defeats in the Senate or House should change the relatively good rela­tionship that has arisen between science policymakers and members of Congress.

The elections were a real confirmation of the congressional status quo. In the Sen­ate, the number of Republicans and Dem­ocrats remained exactly the same, 55 to 45, which continues to give Democrats the power to sustain presidential vetoes and prevent legislation from coming to the floor by fili­bustering. In the House, with its 435 elections, only five members running for reelection lost, al­though the Democrats did pick up five seats, slightly lowering the Re­publican majority to 223 to 211, with one independent. The tighter majority will make it much harder to pass controversial legislation fa­vored by Republicans such as fast-track trade negotiation authority or electricity industry deregulation.

The unexpected resignation of Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) as Speak­er of the House and from Congress is harder to interpret. Gingrich was a staunch supporter of science and tech­nology and may have had a hand in the success of the science budget for 1999. His likely successor, Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.) is not known for his science sup­port. However, the improved funding did come from Livingston's Appropria­tions Committee, so he can't be totally against it.

Although several seats changed par­ties in the Senate, the overall balance is the same. The only committee chairman to have lost is Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato

(R-N.Y.), who heads the Banking, Hous­ing & Urban Affairs Committee. He will be replaced by Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex-as), who is expected to have his own ideas on banking reform, an issue that occupied a lot of time this year.

Senate committees that work on sci­ence and technology issues remain the same for the next Congress. Sen. Frank H. Minkowski (R-Alaska) was reelected hand­ily and will be back at the head of the En­ergy & Natural Resources Committee. His influence in that position is obvious by the number of special projects earmarked to Alaska in the omnibus appropriations bill passed just last month. One issue Mur-kowski is expect­ed to push next year is a compre­

hensive restructuring of the electric utili­ty industry, and another is creation of a temporary nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada.

The Environment & Public Works Committee, chaired by Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.L), will get a slightly different look because of the retirement of Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (R-Idaho), who headed the Subcommittee on Drinking Water, Fisheries & Wildlife. Also, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) may give up his chairman­ship of the Transportation & Infrastructure Subcommittee when he is appointed chairman of the Armed Services Commit­tee. Chafee's committee is expected to

fight the same battles in this Congress as in the last, namely the reauthorization of the Superfund law and the construction of a nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) remains at the head of the Senate's Commerce, Sci­ence & Transportation Committee, which also maintains its subcommittee chairmen. Early priorities for this com­mittee are not in the science area but in­clude legislation to reauthorize the Fed­eral Aviation Administration and the Fed­eral Communications Commission.

The narrowing of the Republican ma­jority in the House will lead to much wrangling over party ratios on the vari­ous committees. Although there won't be much change, the ratio will narrow a little. Despite election losses and retire­ments, only one committee chairmanship will change in the House next year. Rep. Robert (Bob) F. Smith (ROre.), head of the Committee on Agriculture, is retiring and will be replaced by Rep. Larry Corn-best (R-Texas), who vied for the post two years ago. Combest will be looking at aid to farmers and crop insurance programs, and he also can be expected to take on

the Clinton Administration's initia­tives to ban the use of some pesti­cides under the Food Quality Pro­tection Act.

Although the election will cause essentially no change in the leadership of the House Commit­tee on Science, that committee has other problems. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) returns as chairman for a second term, and Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (DCalif.), the ranking Democrat and longest serving member of the committee, will return as well.

Sensenbrenner has said he ex­pects to continue pressing the Administration over the participa­tion of Russia on the space sta­

tion program. He wants the Russians out, but the National Aeronautics & Space Ad­ministration is trying to keep the failing Russian space agency afloat. Other prior­ities for Sensenbrenner will be the reau­thorization of NASA, the promotion of commercialization of space, and hearings on the Kyoto climate-change treaty.

The Science Committee's biggest problem is one of image. Although it is supposed to authorize much federal spending on science and technology, the appropriations subcommittees are actual­ly making the decisions, leaving the Sci­ence Committee without much power. As a result, few members really want to

House Science Committee members Sensenbrenner (above) and Brown.

NOVEMBER 16, 1998 C&EN 23

N . v v j j . h . n r n i

be on this committee, and Sensenbren-ner has had trouble keeping members in­terested. When openings appear on oth­er committees, Science Committee mem­bers often leave. Several vacancies exist on the panel now, and they likely will be assigned to freshmen members, whether the new members want them or not.

In the House Committee on Com­merce, which has jurisdiction over such widely dispersed issues as biomedical re­search and national energy policy, Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.) continues as chairman. One priority for early in the next session for this committee will be electricity industry deregulation.

The maintenance of the status quo has not prevented some issue-oriented groups from claiming victories in this election, particularly the environmental lobby. Several groups, such as the Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters, see the election as making Congress more environmentally friendly. The loss­es by D'Amato in New York and Repub­lican Sen. Lauch Faircloth in North Caro­lina, considered by many activist groups to be antienvironmental, as well as the narrow victory in Nevada by Democratic

Senate approves Clinton S&T nominees On Oct. 21, the last day of the second ses­sion of the 105th Congress, the Senate confirmed 120 people who had been nominated by President Bill Clinton for various posts in the executive branch. Many of those confirmed are now federal judges or ambassadors, but a number are members of the Administrations science and tech­nology team.

Some waited months for confir­mation and others just a few days. Some never were confirmed. And as new members were joining the Lehman team, others were departing. Bruce A. Lehman, assistant secretary of the Commerce Department and commissioner of the Patent & Trade­mark Office since 1993, announced on Oct. 23 that he would be leaving his post by year's end.

Among the nominees confirmed on Oct. 21 are the following:

Sen. Harry Reid, who has fought locating a nuclear storage facility in that state, are given as evidence of this.

The fates of 25 state environmental in­itiatives were mixed. Measures were vot­ed on in 21 states; 15 were approved by voters and 10 were rejected. For exam­ple, hog-farming conservation plans were approved in Colorado and South Dakota, as was a ban on cyanide leaching at new open-pit gold mines in Montana. But California residents rejected giving tax breaks to owners of property con­taminated with toxic waste, and Oregon voters rejected three environmental initi­atives, including one to ban the use of chemical herbicides on forests.

Finally, there will be one new scien­tist in the House next year, Rush D. Holt Jr. (D-N.J.). Before running for Congress, Holt was a physics professor at Princeton University and assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He will join a handful of other Ph.D. scien­tists who are legislators. They include Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers (R-Mich.), physics; Rep. John W. Olver (D-Mass.), chemistry; and Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett Jr. (R-Md.), physiology.^

Chemical Safety & Hazard Investiga­tion Board

• Isadore Rosenthal, senior fellow at the Wharton Risk Management & Deci­sion Process Center, University of Penn­sylvania, and former safety director, Rohm and Haas, nominated Sept. 29.

• Andrea Kidd Taylor, industrial hy-gienist, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America, nominated Oct. 5. Department of Energy

• David Michaels, epidemiologist and professor, City University of New York Medical School, nominated Sept. 22 as assistant secretary for environment, safe­ty, and health. Environmental Protection Agency

• Norine E. Noonan, vice president for research and dean of the graduate school, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, nominated July 29 as assis­tant administrator for R&D.

• J. Charles Fox, associate administra­tor at EPA, nominated July 17 as assistant administrator for water.

• Robert W. Perciasepe, assistant ad­ministrator for water at EPA, nominated Oct. 7 as assistant administrator for air and radiation.

• Romulo L. Diaz Jr., director, Office of Regulatory Coordination, Department

of Energy, nominated July 17 as assistant administrator for administration and re­source management. Food & Drug Administration

• Jane E. Henney, physician and vice president for health sciences, University of

New Mexico, Al­buquerque, nomi­nated June 23 as commissioner. U.S. Geological Survey

• Charles G. Groat, geologist and associate vice president, research and sponsored

Henney projects, University of Texas, El Paso,

nominated July 30 as director. National Science Board

• Anita K. Jones, University Professor of Computer Science, School of Engineer­ing & Applied Science, University of Vir­ginia, Charlottesville, nominated Sept. 3.

• Pamela A. Ferguson, professor of mathematics and former president, Grin-nell College, Grinnell, Iowa, nominated Sept. 3.

Other nominees who were not confirmed include the following: Department of Energy

• T. J. Glauthier, associate director for natural resources, energy, and science, Office of Management & Budget, nomi­nated Sept. 10 as deputy secretary.

• Rose Eilene Gottemoeller, director, DOE Office of Nonproliferation & Nation­al Security, nominated Sept. 22 as assistant secretary for nonproliferation and national security. National Science Board

• George M. Langford, Ernest Everett Just Professor of Natural Sciences and professor of biological sciences, Dart­mouth College, and adjunct professor of physiology, Dartmouth Medical School, nominated Sept. 24.

• Joseph A. Miller Jr., senior vice pres­ident for R&D, and chief technology offi­cer, DuPont, nominated Sept. 24.

• Robert C. Richardson, professor of phy­sics, Cornell University, nominated Sept. 3.

• Maxine L. Savitz, general manager of ceramic components, AlliedSignal, nominated Sept. 24.

• Luis Sequeira, J. C. Walker Professor Emeritus, Departments of Bacteriology and Plant Pathology, University of Wis­consin, Madison, nominated Sept. 24.

• Chang-Lin Tien, NEC Distinguished Professor of Engineering, University of Cal­ifornia, Berkeley, nominated Sept. 24.^

24 NOVEMBER 16, 1998 C&EN

g o v e r n m e n t