g90 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON S< IEN< I AND TECHNOLOGY 



between the lines of written statements. But nobody budged or blinked. 

 The lines of battle were still drawn rigidly. The President of Common- 

 wealth Edison Co. summed it up when he wrote Teague on July 5: 



The Flowers amendment is well-intentioned, but as you note, it contains no 

 commitment to build a breeder. 



The CRBR supporters enjoyed active and powerful organizational 

 support from the nuclear industry and segments of organized labor, 

 especially the building and construction trades. Mrs. Lloyd, McCor- 

 mack, Wydler, and their allies were not idle in the three-month period 

 between committee passage of Mrs. Lloyd's amendment and the floor 

 debate in the House. While the messy jurisdictional controversy with 

 the Commerce Committee was proceeding (sec pages 720-721), the 

 CRBR supporters were bombarding their House colleagues with 

 "breeder briefs" and other factual material to arm them for the coming 

 struggle. Wydler and Myers wrote five "Dear Colleague" letters to 

 fellow Congressmen in the days before the vote. Throughout the 

 Nation, employees of those companies producing components for 

 CRBR entered the fray with a flurry of mail to bolster additional sup- 

 port in Congress. The opponents of CRBR were likewise active, and 

 they too circulated large numbers of arguments to bolster their case. 



JULY 14 DAY OF DECISION 



The day of decision finally arrived on July 14, 1978. A final appeal 

 had been made in a "Dear Colleague' ' letter by Teague, Fuqua, Flowers, 

 and Brown to support the compromise. But every House Member was 

 also peppered with equally persuasive arguments on the other side. 



In presenting his amendment to the House, Flowers recognized 

 that few minds would be changed by the debate: 



All of the arguments that I am going to hear shortly against it I have made 

 myself in years gone by. I think I can anticipate each and every one of them. 



"This is a true compromise in that it does not completely satisfy either 

 side of the ideological fight," declared Brown. 

 Wydler fired back: 



Let nobody make any mistake about what he is doing when he votes for the 

 Flowers amendment. The Flowers amendment finishes, puts to death, the Clinch 

 River project. That is the exact result of it. * * * The Clinch River project is dead as 

 a doornail once that amendment is passed. 



McCormack said the House would be in a stronger position in the con- 

 ference committee if it rejected the Flowers amendment: 



Then, we are in the position to tell the President that we can force him to veto 

 it if that is what he intends to do, and tell the American people that he intends to 

 kill the breeder program. Let him be the executioner, not us. 



