NO H I I I.IK.I AN OLD FOSSIL II I I 



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lican of Pennsylvania.) Yates and McDadc rushed off a letter to Teague 

 stating that the Hechler amendment would "duplicate or supersede 

 the present effective and ongoing research so ably conducted by the 

 U.S. Bureau of Mines." Thev argued, in terms used by Dr. Falkie, 

 that extraction research should be centralized, and that ERDA lacked 

 the trained technicians to do what the Bureau of Mines was doing. 

 They said: 



Wc Jouht that the Nation's energy research activity will gain any ground by 

 fragmenting years of technical expertise at Mines, and transferring it to ERDA, an 

 agency with little or no capability in this area. 



On April 18, Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton sounded a 

 new note of alarm in a further letter to Teague. Secretary Morton 

 said that the proposal "submitted by Congressman Hechler * * * 

 contains ominous implications for the operation of our Government." 

 He also condemned the data bank which he contended would "dupli- 

 cate efforts of several Government agencies, including those of the 

 Interior Department." 



Teague sent a strong response to Secretary Morton, on April 21. 

 The response underlined the legislative authority for ERDA to conduct 

 research in a coordinated way in all energy areas. It was pointed out 

 that the Office of Coal Research, which had been transferred to ERDA, 

 had legislative authority to "develop through research, new and more 

 efficient methods of mining, preparing and utilizing coal." Had the 

 Bureau of Mines been accomplishing an imaginative, innovative and 

 aggressive performance, perhaps the issue would not have arisen. But 

 Dr. Falkie succeeded in stirring up a host of powerful Congressmen 

 when he saw his own turf threatened. Increasingly, he used the theme 

 that all the subcommittee was doing was trying to foster duplication 

 of what was already going on in the Bureau of Mines. 



While the active lobbying was proceeding, the subcommittee had 

 a few days of breathing room before the full committee met for a final 

 markup of the bill. To blunt some of the criticisms against line item- 

 ing, it was decided to work out reprograming language which would 

 give ERDA sufficient flexibility and at the same time retain committee 

 oversight and control over the process. Working with Colonel Gould, 

 who had closely followed NASA programs and oversight since the 

 the early 1960's, an amendment was developed to make the process in 

 ERDA conform closely to the NASA practices and experiences. 



FULL COMMITTEE MARKUP 



On April 28, the full committee made its final decisions on mark- 

 ing up the ERDA authorization bill, and a battle ensued. For three 



