Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space
Among Senate authorizing committees, one of the most important to the science community is the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Authorizing committees can approve, but not provide funds for, programs under their jurisdiction. Under Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and, prior to that, under then-Senator Al Gore (D-TN), the subcommittee considered numerous science and technology issues, including research on global warming, the space program, and the role of the federal government in funding basic research. The subcommittee’s new chairman is Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), who was elected to the Senate in 1988. Senator Larry Pressler (SD) is the chairman of the full commerce committee.
Subcommittee roster:
Republicans: |
Democrats: |
Conrad Burns (MT) |
John Rockefeller (WV) |
Larry Pressler (SD) |
John Kerry (MA) |
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) |
Richard Bryan (NV) |
Ted Stevens (AK)* |
Byron Dorgan (ND)* |
Trent Lott (MS) |
|
*New member of subcommittee
Burns is one of only three members of Montana’s congressional delegation. He hails from Billings, Montana’s largest city, a largely Republican area where the main industries are cattle and wheat. As a member of the commerce committee, Burns has been heavily involved in matters of telephone and cable regulation. Burns is also a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on VA/HUD/Independent Agencies, which provides funding for NSF and NASA.
In his 1993 voting record, Burns voted 92 percent of the time along party lines, and with the President only 24 percent of the time. He received a score of 85 percent from the Conservative Coalition for his voting record. On major science-related votes, he consistently supported the space station from 1991 through 1994. Although he supported the SSC in 1992, he voted against it in 1993.
Today, Burns’s subcommittee held a hearing on the science and technology programs of the Department of Commerce. Testimony on the Clinton Administration’s strategies for assisting industry was presented by Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, Undersecretary for Technology Policy Mary Good, NIST Director Arati Prabhakar, and Undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere James Baker. Details of this hearing will be reported in a future FYI.
