 |
||
|
||
|
Perspectives
Boehlert Ascending
The research policy community is mostly tickled pink over the appointment of Rep. Sherwood (Sherry) Boehlert as the new chairman of the House Science Committee. Boehlert, a moderate Republican from a working class district in upstate New York, has been on the committee for 19 years and took over when his predecessor, James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, moved earlier this year into the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee.
Many believe Boehlert will follow in the tradition of the late and legendary George Brown, the socially conscious California Democrat who enlivened the committee for nearly three decades with visionary ideas, blunt talk, and periodic reprimands to the scientific community for its excesses and deficiencies.
Brown, however, was predictable as a booster of scientific research and big science. Boehlert, in some ways the equal of Brown as a populist, is less predictable. “Scientists don’t know diddly about shaping public policy,” is one of his past statements worth remembering. It came during debates in the mid 1990s over the Superconducting Super Collider, which he opposed vituperatively, earning the enmity of the high energy physics tribe. He is, however, a backer of high energy physics in general, especially when internationally funded.
The committee Boehlert now leads is the most recent of all the House legislative bodies. It began its life as the Science and Astronautics Committee back in 1958 when space policy and fear of Soviet Union supremacy in space dominated public debate. Thus, through the 1960’s it operated very much at the heart of public interest. But by the early 70s, the Soviet Union proved it was no longer competitive with the U.S. in space, NASA’s popularity waned, and the committee took on broader and more esoteric science and technology issues. Its major function was to authorize most agency R&D budgets (except defense, health, and agriculture). But few outside of the science press and technical community paid much attention to it, and the House Appropriations Committee seldom felt compelled to heed what the Science Committee was authorizing anyway. The committee, however, made a point of policing the community through oversight hearings and often through behind-the-scenes investigations of misbehavior.
Boehlert may bring questionable behavior into the open. He says he wants to burst the committee’s limits and take it in new and influential directions, focusing initially on energy, environment, and education. He is especially critical of research universities as they have grown and, to him and other critics, tended to minimize undergraduate education. He could bring the committee into public prominence depending on the trouble he wants to risk, for example by delving into the social and moral issues that permeate science debates today. Judging by the first of full committee hearing—Feb. 28, on renewable energy policy—he will at least try to get to the bottom of issues. The hearing was an extensive examination of environmentally compatible energy technologies and factors that have kept them from taking deeper root. As one attendee put it, “the hearing seemed more like a seminar. It reminded me of the way George Brown used to run them.” Still, given the crisis in California and fears surrounding the national energy picture, the hearing got little play in the general press.
One of the first things to know about Boehlert is that he plays pretty well to all political audiences and doesn’t hesitate to pick issues he is willing to fight for. He is also a baseball buff and a New York Yankee fan who gains and reinforces friendships by conducting private tours of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. It was during one such tour at the Hall that his friendship with President George W. Bush had its beginnings.
“My friendship with the President is long standing,” he says. “He is a certified baseball nut and so am I. His first visit to Cooperstown and the Hall of Fame was with me 15 years ago. We were both like a couple of kids on a Sunday school picnic. We’ve had a good relationship over the years and I had a very good relationship with his Dad. I brought him to Cooperstown before I brought his son.”
A visit to Cooperstown could well be a winning card for Boehlert when the going gets tough with one colleague or another. He claims to have easy access to the White House and “some of the Administration’s key players. Spence Abraham, the Secretary of Energy, is a close personal friend. He’s been my guest at Cooperstown. We have a good personal relationship with Christine Todd Whitman, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator. The other day she and I met with our senior staffs in my office talking over the Administration’s program and the directions we think it should take. So we’re off to a good start.
“We’re going to prove by performance that we should be paid attention to. That’s why we’re laying down the marker right off the bat with hearings on energy policy, education policy, and environment policy. We are going to demonstrate that we are going to be a major player. Unlike the past, when oftentimes the committee missed opportunities in one subject area or another because we were focusing exclusively on the future of the space station or some related policy.”
Nothing Boehlert says, however, suggests that he is willing to go toe to toe with other committees on any given issue. That isn’t his way. But he says he doesn’t shy away from conflict. “I’m in my nineteenth year in the House. In my whole career I’ve been willing to demonstrate that I am willing to risk conflict if I believe deeply in a subject. I would point out that I have a very good working relationship with the leadership—the Speaker, the majority leader, and the majority whip.
“When we went through this process of prospective committee chairmen,” he recalls, “we were for the first time interviewed by the leadership of the steering committee. In essence we had to apply for our jobs. It was a pretty rough grilling about what we think of this or that, where we want to take the committee, how we think we’re going to do it, what kind of player we are within the Republican majority, all that sort of thing. Tom DeLay, the Whip, who has the affectionate nickname ‘The Hammer,’ spoke very strongly in support of my candidacy. And one of the things he pointed out, in speaking in my behalf, was that we were far apart on some issues. But he said I was a valuable member of the conference and they could count on me to work cooperatively with them.”
The key to that type of service, as Boehlert sees it, is as a barometer of sorts on key technical issues both parties have to face. Few Republicans have as sympathetic entrée into the scientific, environmental, and labor communities as Boehlert —Boehlert’s predecessors Sensenbrenner and the abrasive Robert Walker didn’t have near the relationship he does. Boehlert says he can serve as a conduit to the Republicans about what these communities are thinking.
As one minority staffer points out, Boehlert the environmentalist will have to pick and choose his positions. He went against his party in voting in favor of gun control legislation. He is openly opposed to the Administration’s goal of oil production in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. He is a devotee of renewable energy technology. Concerned about acid rain and its impact on the lakes and forests, he has not hesitated to take on the utility industry. He was one of a handful of Republicans who this month voted against the successful Republican attempt to overturn the Labor Department’s repetitive injury rule. Boehlert may lack the substantive depth of George Brown. Brown was after all a trained scientist and engineer and knew both the lingo and the ways of thought of those communities. But Boehlert almost matches Brown in breadth of interest, pretty much equals him in passion for causes, and probably surpasses him in his taste for controversy. Like Brown, he is in no awe of the scientist. In addition, it took some guts when he voted against his party and in fact his Catholic Church in opposing the ban on partial birth abortions, saying the issue was more between the mother and physician than with Congress and the police.
As for the committee’s agenda under Boehlert, look for systematic examinations of numbers of issues. Energy, environment, and science and math education will predominate. That’s already been well reported. He is expected to delve into defense R&D, the impact of big medical spending on the rest of science, the setting of priorities in R&D spending, and the larger policy and ethical aspects of the R&D enterprise. Important public issues are there for the picking.
Committee staffers report that relations between majority and minority staffs have never been better. Meetings are much more frequent. The committee has returned to the ancient practice of weekly meetings between staff directors to discuss committee agendas.
Boehlert appears to be a person with his eye on the social contract for science—hardly out of keeping with the bread and butter interests of his constituency. He seldom mentions the values of the labor movement in his speeches but Labor happens to be the main source of his political and financial support. And for a Republican, that fact is significant. In fact, for anyone interested in the social payoff of scientific research and technological venturings it is a phenomenon worth paying attention to. So Boehlert has plans and the committee website [www.house.gov/science] should be worth watching for anyone looking for a little potential action. |
|
