DC Underground
THERE IS an underground layer to the complex of majestic white marble buildings that are the center of the U.S. Federal Government. Under the busy streets and parklike lawns surrounding the Capitol Building a small subway system connects both the House Office Buildings and the Senate Office Buildings with the Capitol. Electric mini-locomotives tow chains of open passenger cars back and forth along subterranean tunnels. Senators and Congressmen are transported to their vast marble chambers in the Capitol Building to record their roll-call votes, then returned to the vast complex of congressional office buildings where most of the actual work of Congress is done and where most of the hearings and committee meeting are held. Congressional staff members, secretaries, interns, lobbyists, and visitors ride the same underground railway, playing their varying parts in the processes of the federal government.
George Preston and his new lobbyist, Alice Lang, jumped onto a open subway car just as the little train was leaving its Capitol terminus. It was raining hard outside, and at Alice’s suggestion they had made the trip from House to Senate office buildings by riding the House subway, walking the length of the Capitol sub-basement, and then riding the Senate subway. It was a busy route, and to George it seemed to be filled with twenty-five year-olds in new-looking tailored business suits. These kids run the government, he thought.
Arriving at the Senate end of the line, George and Alice followed the signs to the Dirksen Senate Office Building. After a cursory check inside their brief cases, a security guard directed them through the arch of a metal detector. They waited for a “non-Members” elevator and took it from the sub-basement to the second floor. Finally they reached Room 229, the offices of Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas. Alice was greeted by the receptionist, who seemed to recognize her from previous visits, and they were shown into a conference room. “Barbara will be with you real soon,” she said, her Arkansas twang proudly displayed in her speech.
“Barbara Warburton is Senator Bumpers’ staff person dealing with energy-related matters, which means the SSC,” Alice explained. “She’s very nice.”
“I’m not sure what we’re doing here,” said George. “I didn’t think Dale Bumpers was on the right Appropriations subcommittee to do us much good.”
“I should have explained,” said Alice. “Last June the House, led by our friends Eckart and Boehlert, voted 232 to 181 to kill the SSC. They zeroed out all SSC funds in the Department of Energy Appropriations Bill. The Senate, over Bumpers’ objections, voted 62 to 32 to continue the SSC at the level of $550 million. Since the two houses of Congress passed different bills, they have to meet in a Joint Conference Committee to iron out their differences. Bumpers wasn’t appointed to that Joint Committee, but as an interested party he’s attending as an ex-officio member with voice but without vote. He’s there pushing for adoption of the House version of the bill. He’ll call Barbara immediately after the vote.”
“Do you understand why he’s opposing the SSC?” asked George. “It seems out of character for him as a progressive.”
“I talked to Barbara about that at some length,” said Alice. “Bumpers’ attitude is rather like Congressman Boehlert’s. He’s basically in favor of supporting science, but he feels that both the SSC and the space station are excessive and out of scale. At a time when the focus of the government should be on balancing the budget, he thinks spending on large and conspicuous science projects sends the wrong message. He’s lost some friends in the Senate over his opposition to the SSC and the space station, but he feels that it’s a matter of principle.”
George nodded. “I can respect that,” he said. “It’s some of those ‘guns for hire’ over in the House that make me feel unclean when I meet with them.”
“I know the ones you mean,” said Alice. “They’re against the SSC because they see it as a vulnerable target of opportunity and because they want another notch on their holsters, but they’re in favor of NASA’s space station boondoggle because there’s PAC money to be had from the big NASA contractors. The same day the House voted down the SSC by 232 to 181, the Space Station bill passed by one vote.”
“That 50 vote difference didn’t come cheap,” said George. “Those swing votes were cast by some of the best Congressmen money can buy.”
“While we have a moment,” said Alice, “let me ask about something. The question keeps popping up of whether the Japanese will contribute to the SSC. The SSC boosters say that the Japanese will join the project any day now and will contribute a billion dollars. Will they?”
George laughed. “They’re just blowing smoke,” he said. “In my universe, Bush went to Japan in November, 1991, right after preparatory visits from Deutsch and Bromley, directly asked Prime Minister Miyazawa for a Japanese commitment to the SSC Project, and came home with a commitment of 150 billion yen. But here and now, that November visit was canceled when the US economy took a turn for the worse. When Bush finally visited Japan this past January his Chief of Staff Sam Skinner, at our urging, dropped the SSC from the agenda of the meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister. The result was that Bush went to Japan and principally distinguished himself by vomiting on Miyazawa. He didn’t bring home any SSC commitment, or much else.”
Alice looked at him suspiciously. “You guys had something to do with the famous International Up-chuck?”
George smiled. “Roger gave the President a benevolent retrovirus so he’d be feeling a bit below par during the meeting and wouldn’t notice the absence of the SSC from the agenda. That virus may have produced Bush’s problem at the State Dinner, but I can’t say we planned it. After Bush had returned to Washington, Miyazawa set up a joint panel to ‘study Japanese participation in the SSC’. That was his inscrutable way of giving the proposal a decent burial. Don’t worry. We’re quite sure the Japanese won’t participate. The moment for that has come and gone.”
The conference room door opened and a tall woman with long dark hair entered. Alice introduced Barbara to George. “What’s the news?” she asked.
“Bad,” said Barbara, “we were ambushed. The House Members of the Conference Committee were appointed by Speaker Tom Foley. It turns out that despite the strong House vote, the House conferees were all SSC advocates, every one of them. The Conference Committee voted to continue the SSC at the full $550 million funding level approved by the Senate.”
“At the full level?” asked Alice. “I thought that when there was a difference between House and Senate bills, the Conference always splits the difference, so at best the SSC could get only half the planned funding.”
“That’s what we’d expected too, but there was a technical point we hadn’t appreciated,” said Barbara. “Since the House deleted the SSC appropriation altogether rather than keeping it in with zero funds, technically there was no difference to split, and so the project got its full funding. I think the SSC advocates in the House deliberately arranged to delete the appropriation, knowing full well that this would happen.”
“I guess there’s always next year,” said George. “We should have a new Congress by then.”
“Senator Bumpers certainly plans to try again next year,” said Barbara, “but I’m not optimistic. The Senate vote isn’t likely to change much. And if Speaker Foley always appoints only SSC supporters to the Conference Committee, we’ll have the same scenario every year. The leadership usually gets its way in this town.”
On the street outside the Dirksen Building, the rain had stopped. George and Alice found a cab that would take them to the Hilton to collect their luggage and then to National Airport. Alice looked depressed.
“After the big vote margin of the House vote, I was so sure we had succeeded,” she said. “The damned project seems to have a life of its own. It can’t be killed.”
“It can,” said George. “You must be patient. Focus on one step at a time. Your work here is done for the year, and it’s time to start the next phase. For the rest of the summer you can work to get your friend Bill Clinton elected.”
“Great!,” said Alice, looking more cheerful. “I really need a change. Congressional politics is fascinating, but for me it has a cumulative toxic effect.”
George laughed. “Some can tolerate the toxins better than others,” he said. “Some years ago the various scientific societies created Congressional Fellowships that supported young scientists who would come to Washington and work as volunteer staff in congressional offices to help make science-related decisions. It’s somewhat revealing that the chemists and mathematicians all left Washington after their year was up, like biblical refugees fleeing Sodom and Gomorra, while most of the physicists liked it and stayed on.”
“I can understand that, I guess,” said Alice, “but I’m ready to leave. This town is not my favorite spot on the Earth. I wasn’t cut out to be Machiavelli.”
“None of us was,” said George. “It makes us feel slimy, and we hate it. But we do it very well, don’t we? I hope we can stop some day soon, before we start to like it.”