XXXVI HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



A simple glossary would probably help readers unacquainted with 

 the strange folkways of Congress, but if you assume everyone is a Rip 

 van Winkle the glossary would sound condescending. So I'll just 



lie mvself to the two questions most frequently asked me: What is 

 a conference committee, and what is a "markup"? When the House and 

 Senate pass a bill in different form, a conference committee including 

 the senior House and Senate Members from the committees having 

 jurisdiction over the legislation get together to agree on a compromise 

 version, which is then submitted to the House and Senate for approval. 

 A "markup" is simply a meeting of committee or subcommittee mem- 

 bers, usually following public hearings, to amend or mark up a bill 

 in order to move it toward linal action by the House or Senate. 



The deeper ! delved into this subject, the bigger the job grew. It 

 could only be accomplished by compressing several years' effort into 

 one year, giving up evenings, weekends, and holidays, by working 

 longer and harder in order to comprehend the totality of the multi- 

 dimensional edifice being constructed. To measure the lull impact of an 

 important congressional committee on public policy, amid the tri- 

 umphs and the tragedies, the occasional human foibles more than 

 matched by dedicated effort and foresight, was a genuine challenge. 



The memory of mankind is short. Congressional committees, with 

 their frequent turnover of personnel, have even shorter institutional 

 memories. To capture and record, and search for the true significance 

 of what an important arm of the Congress has accomplished has been 

 the aim of this work. It will be for others to judge whether that aim 

 has been realized. 



I have personally enjoyed the opportunity to reconstruct the 

 events of the past 20 years. Despite the care with which a number of 

 individuals have read the manuscript, 1 take full responsibility for 

 both the personal judgments which have been made and the errors 

 which have crept in. 



Ken Hechler. 



