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I: was a cat-and-mouse game tor the subcommittee to try and pry 

 from administration witnesses positive indications of support for the 

 pending legislation. Responses were in terms of asserting that there 

 was already authority in existing law, that an interagency committee 

 existed to do what the hill envisaged — albeit a somewhat toothless 

 committee. Brown's strategy was to call witnesses not only from 

 Federal agencies, but also panels of users of climate information and 

 services, international experts, and private climatic consultants. 



Based on information gleaned during the hearings, Brown and his 

 subcommittee redrafted their legislation and marked it up at the end 

 of April. Even though it still did not have the administration's full 

 blessing, lots of suggestions for amending the legislation came in. 

 Brown remarked to his subcommittee that one of the reasons for this 

 was that the subcommittee was really running ahead of the adminis- 

 tration in its thinking. He discussed the many precautionary flags of 

 delay run up by the executive branch, and advised: 



I am not really inclined to feel that we ought to delay indefinitely while the 

 administration gets its act together. 



COORDINATION AND LEADERSHIP 



By the time the bill came up for debate in the House on Septem- 

 ber 9, the structure and details had been further perfected. The legis- 

 lation authorized $50 million to establish a national climate program 

 to monitor the climate; carry forward climate research; make future 

 estimates; assess the impact of climatic changes on agriculture, energy 

 use, water resources, human activities, and other factors; and dissemi- 

 nate the information generated. The bill emphasized that the aim was 

 coordination, not simply to create a repository of data. 



Flexibility was allowed for the President to designate a "lead 

 agency - ' to give central focus to the program, even though it was 

 pretty well assumed the President would select NOAA (which he did). 

 Bv the time the bill reached the House floor, Brown could term it " a 

 well-refined and fully developed charter for a comprehensive national 

 program on climate.' 



When he presented the bill to the House on September 9, 1977, 

 Brown knew how to attract the attention of his listeners: 



I know that you and all of our colleagues remember the barges frozen in the Ohio 

 River barges carrying the heating oil that was desperately needed to keep factories 

 open and homes warm. I know you all remember the plants that were shut down for 

 a lack of natural gas in the Last, while at the same time there was natural l,ms avail- 

 able in other parts of the country. 



John O'Lcary, Administrator ot the Federal Energy Administration, testified 

 this spring in hearings before our committee that we could have saved many millions 

 perhaps billions of dollars last winter if we had had better generalized climate 

 information in advance 



