976 



HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



programs. Within the scientific community, the National Academy of 

 Sciences was charging that EPA was not doing enough long-term 

 research. 



Into this tangled situation, Brown's subcommittee confidently 

 moved once again early in 1977 to come up with an R. & D. authoriza- 

 tion bill for EPA. During rive days in February and early March, the 

 subcommittee held its hearings. Brown opened the hearings with an apt 

 characterization: 



Out of this organized chaos, I hope we can get down to mere confusion shortly. 



Brown acknowledged that EPA was the lead agency for environmental 

 research. But he expressed the opinion that in the past OMB had 

 greatly overemphasized the role of EPA as a lead agency, to the 

 detriment of cooperative environmental research with other agencies 

 like ERDA, NASA, NOAA, EOT, and others. 



Out of the hearings, several conferences and markup sessions, as 

 well as meetings with Senate staff, emerged a much more positive 

 EPA R. & D. authorization than had been possible in the past. The 

 subcommittee had reached a level of sophistication that, by carefully 

 working with EPA staff, it was possible to key the authorization 

 specifically to the legislation and EPA responsibilities in each program 

 area. This represented a major step forward not only in determining 

 priorities, but also in setting oversight benchmarks. In dollar figures, 

 the subcommittee recommended a $25 million, or 9,'j-percent increase, 

 over the President's budget. Otherwise, because of the inflation rate, 

 EPA R. & D. would have actually sustained a cut, especially in view 

 of the additional responsibilities in the areas of solid waste and toxic 

 substances as a result of 1976 legislation. 



The full committee on March 30, 1977, approved these recom- 

 mendations, as well as several additional concepts written into the 

 legislation approved by the subcommittee. Henceforth, in its 5-year 

 research plan, EPA was required to project three different options— 

 for a no-growth, moderate-growth and high-growth budget. One of 

 the most significant subcommittee additions was to establish the 

 Science Advisory Board by statute, increasing its responsibilities and 

 providing that the Board also review EPA's five-year plan. The Board 

 helped provide independent advice to the EPA Administrator from the 

 scientific community. As Brown told the full committee: 



The subcommittee felt that the Science Advisory Board should retain its non- 

 Federal nature by that I mean no Federal employees would be members ol I he 

 Board in order to gain the advice of our best scientitic minds on the outside ol the 

 present Federal structure. 



Harkin added $1.1 million in the full committee to support the 

 solid waste activities program, with particular reference to the Ames, 

 Iowa, resource recovery facility. Goldwater added several amendments 



