510 HISTORY OF [HI ( OMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



call votes. Representative Angelo Roncallo (Republican of New York) 

 offered an amendment to prohibit the use of any NSF funds for research 

 "on a fetus which is outside the womb of its mother and which has a 

 beating heart." 'league accepted the amendment, on the grounds that 

 the NSF was not involved in funding any such research, which was 

 more clearly the province of the National Institutes of Health. Al- 

 though many Members complained that the amendment had little 

 meaning on an NSF authorization, it was adopted by a rollcall vote of 

 188-73. 



The conference committee in 1973 added a provision which 

 strengthened one of the committee's oversight tools, by requiring NSF 

 to keep the House and Senate authorizing committees "fully and 

 currently informed" through quarterly reports concerning their future 

 financial plans. It took some prodding by the committee to get NSF 

 to conform to this provision, however. 



IMPROVING OVERSIGHT OVER NSF 



On December 21, Teague, Davis, Mosher, and Bell huddled in the 

 anteroom to the main committee room to make battle plans for im- 

 proving committee oversight through use of the reporting provision. 

 In a 3-page "Dear Guy" letter, Teague asked Dr. Stever to shake up 

 NSF procedures which had all too often notified the committee of 

 actions too late for Congress to do anything about them. Teague cited 

 several examples: 



The decision to take the research ship Eltanin out of service (a decision which 

 reached the crew of this oceanographic ship while south of Australia, which was 

 only reversed after months of committee effort through the authorization legisla- 

 tion); the decision to reorient substantially the entire science education program; the 

 decision to make notable changes in the RANN energy research program; the deci- 

 sion to initiate such new programs as the University Research Management Program. 



Teague's letter went on to advise NSF: 



In the future, the committee should be advised before similar changes, program 

 initiatives or cancellations are made. Since the purpose of this is to enable the com- 

 mittee to express an opinion to you regarding such changes, notification should 

 obviously reach us a reasonable time period before your own final decisions are to be 

 made. 



Teague further asked the NSF to supply the committee each year 

 with a full copy of its budget request in each category presented to the 

 Office of Management and Budget, a practice which the Atomic 

 Energy Commission had followed for many years with the Joint 

 Committee on Atomic Energy. The information from NSF was readily 

 forthcoming, and did serve to sharpen the committee's oversight 

 ability once the process was working more smoothly. It is interesting 



