A NEW NAME AND EXPANDED AUTHORITY FOR THt COMMITTEE 733 



obviously going to hurt himself, and this fact was never acknowledged 

 by those righting to preserve one of the last bastions of the status quo. 

 Gradually, the walls came tumbling down, and as time went on the 

 trend was very clearly in the direction of greater freedom for staff 

 selections by the subcommittee chairmen. 



OVERSIGHT SUBCOMMITTEE 



In the early 1970's, separate oversight subcommittees operated 

 primarily for NASA oversight (see chapter IX.) Teague chaired the 

 Subcommittee on NASA Oversight in 1970, Downing in 1971 and 

 Fuqua in 1972. When Teague became chairman of the full committee in 

 1973, he stressed that each subcommittee should conduct vigorous 

 oversight functions within its jurisdictional areas, and that general 

 oversight would be conducted through the full committee and the 

 staff. In 1973 and 1974, the oversight work by the committee and its 

 subcommittees proceeded aggressively. Even when bogged down by 

 annual authorization hearings, the subcommittees managed to get 

 out on field trips to review and assess not only research and develop- 

 ment but also construction of facilities. The committee's No. 1 spe- 

 cialist in construction oversight was Colonel Gould, who took the 

 lead in oversight up to the time he moved up to become Deputy Direc- 

 tor in mid-1975, and Ron E. Williams took over as construction 

 specialist in early 1976. 



The Boiling committee report, and the reform legislation enacted 

 in 1974, put a great deal of stress on the need for beefing up the oversight 

 function in all committees. The Boiling report required the establish- 

 ment of an oversight subcommittee on every standing committee, 

 setting up a network of oversight reports supervised by the House 

 Committee on Government Operations. The legislation as finally 

 enacted in 1974 softened these requirements somewhat, while preserv- 

 ing the central oversight authority of the Government Operations 

 Committee and also requiring the reporting of oversight plans and 

 progress. But instead of requiring a specific oversight subcommittee, 

 the final version of the reforms gave every committee with 15 or more 

 members the alternative of either establishing an oversight subcom- 

 mittee or conducting oversight through subcommittees. The 1974 

 reform law stipulated : 



The establishment of oversight subcommittees shall in no way limit the respon- 

 sibility of the subcommittees with legislative jurisdiction from carrying out their 

 oversight responsibilities. 



In addition, as noted above, the Science Committee was given specia* 

 oversight over all nonmilitary research and development. 



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