896 HISTORY or TH I ( OMMITTEK ON SCIKNC.I AND TECHNOLOGY 



the beginning of 1977. Then the subcommittee was dealing with a 

 relatively new agency — ERDA which in two years of operation had 

 barely gotten used to the idea of handling both nuclear and nonnuclear 

 R. & D. in the same shop, side by side. The nuclear side of the agency 

 had been accustomed to vaguely generalized presentations, usually 

 accepted quickly and sympathetically by the Joint Committee. Now 

 they had to learn the facts of life on budget controls, and prying Con- 

 gressmen who wanted clear and meaningful descriptions of what the 

 billions were being spent for, and also wanted picayune details instead 

 of multimillion-dollar generalities presented in bureaucratese. On 

 April 20, 1977, the President presented his national energy plan, after 

 which the Ad Hoc Committee on Energy was established in the House, 

 and Congress started to work on the President's proposal for a new 

 Department of Energy to succeed ERDA. 



On top of this, the big public issue which occupied most people's 

 time and attention was the light over the Clinch River Breeder Reactor. 

 There was the little matter of authorizing for and providing oversight 

 for the many energy programs in the fossil fuels area. With all these 

 distractions, it is a wonder that the subcommittee did its job as 

 thoroughly as it did. 



NUCLEAR BRIEFINGS 



The subcommittee began an intensive series of briefings in February 

 1977, which included both Federal officials and outside experts in the 

 nuclear held. These briefings enabled the subcommittee to familiarize 

 itself with the issues and alternatives prior to the start of the formal 

 budget authorization hearings. The 1977 actions of the committee were 

 complicated by the necessity to vote early in the year on the authori- 

 zation for the prior year which had not been passed by the Senate. The 

 full committee voted out this bill on April 20 by a 30-1 margin, with 

 Ottinger alone dissenting on the grounds that the legislation enacted 

 nuclear programs which had been voted by the Joint Committee on 

 Atomic Energy in 1976 without consideration by the Science Com- 

 mittee. That particular bill went through without too much difficulty 

 and was signed into law by June. 



In 1977, the subcommittee and full committee also faced a situation 

 which further divided their consideration of nuclear issues. One ERDA 

 bill authorized over $6 billion for civilian applications and went 

 directly to the Science Committee; another bill covered ERDA's 

 national security programs to the tune of close to $2 billion. The latter 

 bill went first to the Armed Services Committee, and was sequentially 

 referred to the Science Committee because of the interest of Teague's 

 committee in laser fusion and naval reactors both of which have non- 

 military applications. Strongly supported by Pursell, the laser fusion 

 authorization was increased by $9.2 million. 



