SCIENCE, RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, 1970-79 ^57 



Top committee members held a strategy session before the Rules 

 Committee appearance. First, they decided to work up a comprehensive 

 set of material, but to allow Davis to present the case in a low key, 

 off-the-cuff fashion. Second, Miller, Davis, Mosher, Cabell, Symington, 



and Bell served as missionaries to explain the bill to various Democratic 

 and Republican members of the Rules Committee. Armed with two 

 brief fact sheets- one a summary of "basic facts" and the other a series 

 of questions and answers, Davis made his short presentation. Davis 

 emphasized the need for Congress to receive independent and unbiased 

 information on technology assessments, and also how the OTA might 

 avoid wasting money on poorly conceived technological pro]ects. 

 The formal hearing lasted only 10 minutes, and the strategy really 

 paid off. The questions from the Rules Committee members were all 

 svmpathetic, and a rule providing one hour of debate was granted the 

 same day as the hearing. The House leadership quickly scheduled floor 

 action on the bill for February 8, exactly a week after the Rules Com- 

 mittee hearing. 



Mosher was designated as the Republican floor leader for the 

 OTA debate in the House. 



PREPARING FOR THE FLOOR DEBATE 



Intensive preparation for the floor debate occupied the committee 

 and staff in the week prior to February 8. Prepared statements were 

 assembled on all facets of the technology assessment movement. 

 Democratic and Republican committee members were briefed, and a 

 division of labor was carefully arranged and assigned. All was not 

 smooth sailing, and several "flaps" occurred. The Democratic Study 

 Group, a powerful organization with a liberal outlook which included 

 most of the House Democrats, was enlisted to help organize the floor 

 effort. The DSG chairman, Representative Don Fraser (Democrat of 

 Minnesota) joined Symington in trying to broaden the bill to enable 

 subcommittee chairmen and ranking minority members to initiate 

 assessments. Davis and Mosher as the Democratic and Republican 

 floor managers for the debate, vetoed this suggestion, and it was not 

 pressed further. 



It is an unusual day when everything goes according to plan in the 

 Congress. Who could have predicted, for example, that the House 

 would be taking up, fiercely debating and finally defeating a resolution 



tablish a Select Committee on Privacy just before the OTA bill? 

 The privacy debate escalated into a vague attack on computerization. 

 technology and modern society scarcely a good backdrop for a rea- 

 soned discussion of OTA. Davis had one minor problem to face: he 



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