644 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON S< II N< 1 AND TECHNOLOGY 



dum proved to be a fairly good prediction of how the Senate would 

 react, and what the compromises would eventually be. Yeager was 

 given authority by Teague to proceed to negotiate with the Senate 

 staff along the lines of the February 10 strategy memorandum. Teague 

 urged that as many as possible of the differences be negotiated by the 

 staffs in advance of a formal conference. 



After additional strategy sessions, on February 25 the House dis- 

 agreed formally with the Senate-passed bill and asked for a conference. 

 At this point, Teague, although a longtime defender of the seniority 

 system, stepped in and exerted his prerogative as committee chairman 

 to reach down into the committee and name the people he wanted as 

 House conferees. Although the bill had been heard and considered 

 throughout in the full committee, several members were skipped over 

 in order to obtain the conferees who were wanted. In addition to 

 himself, Teague named Fuqua, Symington, McCormack, and Thornton 

 as the Democratic conferees, and Mosher and Esch as the Republican 

 conferees. At first glance, it might be concluded that Teague was 

 simply going down the seniority list on the Subcommittee on Science, 

 Research and Technology. But even if this were true, Flowers and 

 Brown were senior to McCormack and Thornton, respectively, on the 

 Science Subcommittee. Suffice it to say, the delicate negotiations with 

 the Senate, like the negotiations with the White House, were carried 

 on within a tight circle of informed committee members. Although 

 the chairman and staff were always open in their responses to ques- 

 tions, very little was volunteered and certainly not cleared with senior 

 members of the committee. 



The month of March was occupied with long, complex, and at 

 times highly emotional negotiating sessions between the staffs of the 

 House and Senate. Frequently, Yeager and Wells, the two House 

 negotiators, were faced with upwards of 20 Senate staff members from 

 the three different Senate committees. Wells indicated that he and 

 Yeager "often remained silent while the Senate staff argued among 

 themselves." He added that often Yeager "was a calming influence 

 when tension ran high." 



PRESIDENT FORD PRODS CONGRESS 



Having been prodded bv Congress to move in 1975, President Ford 

 as a candidate for election in 1976 perhaps felt it was time to turn the 

 tables and give Congress a prod about "his" proposal. On March 22, 

 1976, the President sent a message to Congress which included this 

 sentence: 



Early agreement by the conference on a workable bill will permit me to proceed 

 without further delay in establishing the Office of Science and Technology Policy. 



