SCIENCE, RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, 1970-79 555 



supported. Bell sponsored several amendments designed to tighten 

 congressional control over the activities of the Technology Assessment 

 Board by insuring that there were more congressional than executive 

 appointees. He also got through an amendment which strengthened 

 the role of the minority in this way: in addition to authorizing the 

 OTA to undertake activities at the request of a congressional com- 

 mittee chairman, the Bell amendment broadened this to include a 

 "request of the ranking minority member of a majority of the com- 

 mittee members." Pelly sneaked in an amendment limiting OTA 

 authorization to one year. The amendments all went through, and 

 Davis with a host of cosponsors introduced a clean bill on Julv 30. 



HURRY, HURRY. 1 



The clock was ticking on the 1st session of the 92d Congress by 

 the time the full committee got around to reporting out the bill. 

 Rules Committee Chairman William Colmer (Democrat of Mississippi) 

 issued his annual edict that his committee would hear no bills except 

 emergency measures after September 1. So the staff burned the mid- 

 night oil to get a report written on the legislation, which Chairman 

 Miller had obtained permission to file despite the fact the House was 

 on its summer recess. 



Congress was in turmoil late in 1971. President Nixon had imposed 

 a price-and-wage freeze, legislation was piling up, constituents had 

 given their Congressmen an earful of economic troubles during the 

 recess, and the jockeying was under way for the 1972 Presidential 

 campaign. Miller, Davis, and Mosher, accompanied by subcommittee 

 staff director Yeager had a round of conferences with Speaker Albert, 

 Majority Leader Boggs, Rules Committee Chairman Colmer, Repre- 

 sentatives Richard Boiling (Democrat of Missouri), and John B. Ander- 

 son (Republican of Illinois), as well as with Sisk who had helped kill 

 the 1970 attempt with his point of order. The consensus among those 

 advising the Science Committee was that the Rules Committee would 

 grant a hearing and probably vote a rule if the Science Committee 

 insisted. But Miller, Davis, and Mosher were advised that the chances 

 for passage of a bill to set up a new agency were not very optimistic 

 given the testy mood of the Congress in the fall of 1971. 



Rules Committee Chairman Colmer persuaded Miller that he 

 would give the OTA bill a hearing after Congress got back from its 

 Christmas holiday early in 1972. Meanwhile Davis kept the issue 

 alive and helped educate all Members on the need for the bill through 

 a series of Congressional Record statements in November and De- 

 cember of 1971. In these statements, Davis outlined several recent 

 developments in the use of technology assessment by private industry, 



