ADVANCED ENERGY TI ( HNcUOGIES 



905 



Congressmen supported and expanded these programs came as a sur- 

 prise. At the first markup of the subcommittee on March 5, McCormack 

 observed : 



If there is any one message that has come out of these hearings we have had during 

 the last two weeks, it is the impatience of members of this subcommittee with the 

 nonnuclear energy and development programs that have been presented as part of 

 the ERDA budget. 



let's get moving 



Ottinger first expressed that impatience on the opening day of the 

 hearings when he addressed Dr. James S. Kane, ERDA's Acting Deputy 

 Administrator for Conservation: 



In terms of the ERDA budget, overall, I think you ought to be in there fighting. 

 You ought to be telling us that you're going to capture the major part of this budget. 



McCormack countered that since OMB set the budget figures, he didn't 

 feel it was "quite fair to ask Dr. Kane to criticize the ratios between 

 his budget and the other parts of budget." Hechler, Ottinger, Dodd, 

 Hayes and other subcommittee members jumped in to stress the strong 

 interest in greater ERDA emphasis on conservation and renewable re- 

 sources. They repeatedly goaded ERDA toward greater effort, pounding 

 away at the need for more urgency. By the time ERDA Administrator 

 Seamans appeared for the windup of the McCormack subcommittee 

 hearings on February 28, 1975, McCormack pressed him to come up 

 with better dollar figures on what ERDA could adequately spend, 

 explaining: 



We are in a real sense on a honeymoon. But all political history indicates that 

 such honeymoons are short-lived. I think if we are going to get this program off the 

 ground, we should establish our patterns, our traditions, our precedents and our 

 jurisdiction and do it aggressively now. That is what this committee wants to do. I 

 suppose this is the only hearing that I have ever heard of in Congress where we have 

 had a persistent discussion for two weeks of trying to push the administrative agencies 

 in taking more money. Usually it is the reverse. 



Dr. Seamans responded by bridging the time gap back to a day in 

 April, 14 years earlier, when the old Science and Astronautics Com- 

 mittee had really spurred NASA. Dr. Seamans recalled the scene in the 

 cramped quarters of the hearing room in 214B of the Longworth 

 Building after Gagarin's 1961 flight (see pages 83-87). 



You made the statement that it is very unusual, and perhaps it had never hap- 

 pened that a committee of Congress tried to convince an agency that more funds were 

 required. I can remember a similar instance, just for the sake of history. That was 

 in 1 961 before we had these lovely surroundings here — when we were over in another 

 building in a very small hearing room. The Congress was extremely upset that more 

 was not being done in this country in the field of space exploration. I still have lots 

 of scar tissue on my back from those hearings. So it has happened before and as you 

 can see, Congress did have an impact then. 



