Selections from the Debate: House Consideration of Science Bill
On May 29 and 30 the House considered H.R. 3322, the Omnibus Civilian Science Authorization Act of 1996. The following selections provide an impression of the debate:
House Science Committee Chairman Robert Walker (R-PA): “We have made some tough choices in crafting this legislation. . . . The Committee on Science has decided to be relevant to the process. . . . those choices have not always been popular and they sure have not been easy. . . . The tenor of the policy debate has now changed within the Congress and the science community as the emphasis has shifted from industrial policy to basic research and from status quo subsidies to new knowledge.”
Rep. George Brown (D-CA): “The idea that we are somehow setting priorities is one of the most absurd fictions that we will be hearing from the other side today. . . . This legislation cuts science programs so deeply that it is actually an antiscience bill. . . . This distinction between basic and applied research is at the heart of the Republican proposal, and yet it is a distinction entirely without relevance [in] the real world.”
Rep. Steven Schiff (R-NM): “The science community needs to understand that the Republican[s] and Democrats in both the House and Senate, on both the Appropriations and Authorization Committees, have been supportive of basic research. Because Members understand that basic research is the economic foundation for our future, they have sheltered these programs when many others are being drastically reduced or eliminated altogether.”
Rep. Tim Roemer (D-IN) on the space station: “If Members look at science and look at merit, this space station just does not pass the test of what hardworking American families will ask in terms of return on their tax dollars. It is not going to return good science.”
Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI): "...we are going through one of the annual rites of spring in Washington. The tulips bloom, the dogwoods become very beautiful, and the gentleman from Indiana introduces his amendment to kill the space station.”
Rep. Walker on an amendment to authorize ATP: “I think industrial policy science makes no sense. It in fact impedes our competitiveness. It does all the wrong things. It has us picking winners and losers in the marketplace. It does all the bad things in terms of how we want to proceed ahead with both research and development and the science of the country.”
Rep. John Tanner (D-TN): "...in behooves us all, government, industry, universities and Federal labs, to work together. That is exactly what these...programs do. They allow for industry to participate in blue sky research with the help of the Federal Government, so that if there is a technological breakthrough sometime down the line, American businesses will be able to take advantage of that in this worldwide marketplace.”
