AERONAUTICS AND rRANSPORTATION 789 



Mr. Wydler. Wc were embarrassed by the last hearings and this will he even 

 worse. 



Mr. Milford. I do not know that we were embarrassed. I think there were 

 some unfortunate statements made that had no substance. 



Mr. Wydler. 1 cannot agree with you. I am not saying, you know, that I 

 agree with all the things said at the hearings but I sav I was embarrassed as a member 

 nt this committee to see them duplicating our work. 



WHO IS THE "CLOWN"? 



At the full committee markup session on March 7, 1978, Lloyd's 

 amendment unanimously passed, requiring quarterly reports from the 

 FAA on the MLS status and their negotiations. The scars of conflict 

 had not healed. Members of the subcommittee broke out into a new 

 argument over the entire MLS controversy, Wydler termed the lack 

 of information from the FAA "disgraceful," and Harkin and Wydler 

 both argued that the committee should declassify the minutes of a 

 subcommittee executive session in which the FAA had agreed to 

 meet with the members off the record. They both made the point 

 that there was nothing of a security nature included in the executive 

 session minutes, and Wydler protested a procedure whereby a "Federal 

 agency can sort of wrap a cloak around all of the material that is 

 placed before the committee." In rebuttal, Milford scarcely endeared 

 himself to his subcommittee members with this offhand comment: 



It was simply an attempt to allow that international body (ICAO) to go and 

 do its work without some clown being able to stand up and say "a committee in 

 Congress" — 



Expressing some frustration, Harkin summarized the controversy 

 in these terms: 



What's involved are the egos of a bunch of engineers at FAA here and a bunch 

 of egos of engineers over there, the only thing that's involved in this whole process. 



The internal squabble finally died down as further testing caused 

 FAA and ICAO both to hold their original positions. The net effect 

 of the controversy was to divert the subcommittee from other pressing 

 priorities and also cause bad feeling among the members and staff. 

 Milford's defeat in the Texas Democratic primary in 1978 also caused 

 the bitter feelings to simmer down. 



AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL 



During 1977 and 1978, the subcommittee performed constructive 

 work in other areas of aeronautics. 



With subject matter producing more controversy among the 

 witnesses than within the subcommittee, Milford staged six days 



