586 HISTORY OF THl COMMITTE1 ON 5CIENC1 AND TECHNOLOGY 



Thornton got the bill through the full committee, and then ran into 

 some flak in the House debate. Bauman attacked the total expenditure 

 of $210 million in a three-year period and was able to enlist 125 Members 

 to oppose the bill. But 229 Congressmen joined to vote for and pass 

 the bill which the President signed on October 7, 1977. The President 

 subsequently established the Federal Emergency Management Agency 

 to which he gave the new coordinating powers over earthquake re- 

 search. The bill provided for the development of earthquake-resistant 

 designs for structures such as schools, hospitals, high occupancy 

 buildings, public utilities, and dams. It also coordinated the develop- 

 ment of a prediction and warning capability, along with planning for 

 reconstruction after an earthquake. As Brown pointed out, great 

 advances had been made through the scientific studies developed in 

 the 1970s, materially improving scientific understanding of earth- 

 quakes and to some extent to prepare for or predict them. 



DNA AND GENETIC ENGINEERING 



When Chairman Thornton pounded his gavel at 9:38 a.m. on the 

 morning of March 29, 1977, room 2318 was overcrowded and the 

 press tables were tilled. In firm and clear tones, he summarized in one 

 sentence what his subcommittee planned to do — to examine the science 

 policy implications of the DNA recombinant molecule research issue. 



Thornton did not have to explain that DNA stood for deoxyri- 

 bonucleic acid — the molecule containing the hereditary unit of the cell . 

 Nor did he have to go through the basic, elementary explanation that 

 recombinant DNA research means removing DNA material from one 

 organism and "recombining" it with DNA of another form to enable 

 the creation of new organisms. Those attending the hearing knew that 

 Thornton was talking about "gene-splicing," the source of many 

 emotional and at times sensationalized Sunday supplements and TV 

 spectaculars. 



Why would this former Attorney General of Arkansas, the year 

 before he ran for the U.S. Senate, plunge into a subject which he him- 

 self labeled as "revolutionary and controversial"? Didn't he recall the 

 story told by an Arkansas alumnus of the 1958 select committee, 

 Congressman Brooks Hays, of a campaign visit wherein Hays asked 

 for questions following a lofty discussion of national and international 

 issues, only to have one listener ask: "What we folks in Big Flat want 

 to know is where you stand on evolution"? 



Unlike his predecessor as subcommittee chairman, Jim Symington, 

 who had the nettles of MACOS brutally thrust on him the year before 

 he ran for the Senate in Missouri, Thornton deliberately reached out 

 and embraced the DNA issue. For 12 solid days and 1,293 pages of the 

 printed hearing record in 1977 and once again briefly in the spring of 



