SCIENCE. RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, 1970-79 577 



During two days of further hearings in May 1961, Fulton advo- 

 cated that the Science Committee should enact authorizations for the 

 Bureau of Standards. Although both Brooks, and to a greater extent 

 his successor, Miller, had very complimentary words for the work of 

 the Bureau, neither chairman moved toward establishing regular 

 oversight or authorization responsibility. Finally, in 1970, when 

 Miller tapped Davis to chair a small Subcommittee on the National 

 Bureau of Standards, all the earlier talk of what should be done esca- 

 lated into action. Most of Davis' special subcommittee activities were 

 zeroed in on fire research and standard reference data legislation. Then 

 when Davis replaced Daddario as the new Science Subcommittee 

 chairman, he conducted a comprehensive five days of oversight 

 hearings on the National Bureau of Standards in September 1971. 

 The subcommittee had available as an excellent background for the 

 hearings a 222-page study by the Science Policy Research Division of 

 CRS, entitled "National Bureau of Standards— Review of its Organiza- 

 tion and Operation." 



In 1972, incorporated into omnibus legislation extending fire safety 

 and standard reference data authorization, the subcommittee amended 

 the Organic Act of the National Bureau of Standards to expand the 

 authority of NBS to assist other nations and international organiza- 

 tions of which the United States is a member. The subcommittee also 

 recognized the fact that Congress through the years had loaded many 

 new responsibilities on the NBS without increasing the funds nec- 

 essary to carry out the new tasks. 



VOLUNTARY STANDARDS 



Following the one-term establishment of a Special Subcommittee 

 on International Commercial Standards under Congressman Roush in 

 1966, oversight in this area was resumed in conjunction with the 1971 

 hearings on the National Bureau of Standards. During the 1971 NBS 

 hearings, there was a good deal of attention directed to the voluntary 

 commercial and technological standards system in which a large part of 

 American industry participates. To bring this matter into focus, the 

 Science Policy Research Division prepared, at the subcommittee's re- 

 quest, a 122-page report entitled "Voluntary Industrial Standards in 

 the United States — An Overview of Their Evolution and Significance 

 for the Congress. ' ' The study was published toward the close of the 93d 

 Congress in 1974. In addition to giving some attention to the metric 

 system, the report also examined the implications of standardization 

 and touched on such points as the inadequacy of voluntary standards 

 for consumer product safety. Much of the legislation required to pro- 



