878 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



THE NEGOTIATIONS INTENSIFY 



On the night of March 14, the negotiations became more intensive. 

 Teague reported at the full committee meeting on Wednesday, March 

 15: 



I would like to tell the committee that there is a real attempt being made to 

 come to some consensus on nuclear between the Senate, the House, the White House, 

 DOE, General Accounting Office, and we hope that by next Tuesday morning, there 

 will be something definite. 



Events moved swiftly later that week. Teague, Flowers, and 

 Schlesinger were very eager to end the senseless deadlock, and they 

 bent every effort to arrive at a compromise which would fly in Congress 

 and attract a majority from the political center of the nuclear contro- 

 versy. 



On Thursday, March 16, Mrs. Lloyd, accompanied by Congress- 

 man Duncan and the two Tennessee Senators met with President 

 Carter. According to Mrs. Lloyd: 



The President told me: "Marilyn, I am opposed to the CRBR program as it now 

 stands." He did say that he wanted to put this on the back burner until he could go 

 down and really see what we were doing. * * * I didn't try to change his mind. But 

 I said: "I think that we can accommodate your fears and your concerns and satisfy 

 our commitment with going ahead and developing a breeder technology to test 

 alternate fuels. I think we can do both, Mr. President." 



PRESIDENT PROMISES TO VISIT OAK RIDGE 



The President's promise to visit Oak Ridge seemed like an effort, 

 in the eyes of some of the strongly pronuclear advocates on the com- 

 mittee, to be part of a further strategy of delay. They wanted to get on 

 with the job of forcing the issue on the CRBR. A minority of environ- 

 mentalists on the committee continued to be appalled at the strong arm 

 tactics being utilized to force the President's hand. Teague and Flowers 

 remained determined to seize the middle ground and exploit statesman- 

 like compromise in the interests of getting the issue off the dime. 



Perceiving that he could not win over the hardliners, Schlesinger 

 finally unveiled his proposal in a letter to Teague dated March 17, 

 1978. The letter included these recommendations: 



To pursue our conversation of earlier this week, this letter further elaborates on 

 a proposal to redirect the Nation's breeder program. This new direction, which 

 would accompany a CRBR program calling for completion of systems design and 

 component testing only, would in our view strengthen our breeder R. & D. pro- 

 gram. * * * 



The March 17 letter proposed evaluating designs for a larger breeder 

 facility, spending $55 million, utilizing 90 percent of the CRBR team 

 of 859 professional persons and keeping the CRBR technology team 



