by Ira Shapiro
Carter’s original plan had been to continue controls on gas consumed in the state where it was produced, but to raise the price ceiling and then let it rise with inflation. The House had passed this version, but the Senate, after Byrd crushed the filibuster by Jim Abourezk and Howard Metzenbaum, had voted to decontrol all natural gas in two years, and the conferees had thrown up their hands and gone home without agreement in 1977.
Finally, after eight more months of haggling, the conferees had struck a deal to end controls on new gas by 1985, but to allow the president or Congress to reimpose controls for one eighteen-month period that could run through 1988. The ceiling would then rise about 10 percent per year, assuming 5 percent inflation. The Senate staff report said that this would increase producer revenue by not more than $9 billion, or 6 percent, by 1985. The report also predicted that the compromise would lead to additional production of 700,000 barrels a day, by 1985, about 10 percent of current imports. However, a Department of Energy analysis of the compromise concluded producers would gain $28.5 billion over the next six years.
A Washington Post analysis commented: “This legislation is much closer to what the president once denounced as ‘war profiteering’ than it is to the administration’s original gas plan.” But the administration’s change of position made sense. America’s gluttonous use of energy reflected the artificially low prices of oil and gas. If the administration wanted to reduce the use of oil and gas and provide incentives for increased production, price increases, however distasteful, had to play a fundamental part in the strategy.
The compromise quickly produced a remarkably diverse coalition of opponents. On August 1, Abourezk and Metzenbaum held a news conference to denounce the compromise as “total surrender” to the oil and gas industry and said they were ready to filibuster once again. A coalition of unions and citizens’ action groups claiming to represent 20 million people pledged an “all out” campaign against the compromise. This time, however, they could count on some allies from Senate champions of the oil and gas industry, who opposed the delay in deregulation. Champions of the energy industry, such as Jim McClure, Republican of Idaho, worried that the annual price increases would not raise the price of natural gas to free-market levels by the time of deregulation and threatened to join in a filibuster.
On August 11, Bennett Johnston, a key architect of the compromise, had announced that he could not support it. In Johnston’s view, the compromise had changed significantly when it was written down, which was certainly conceivable in an issue of this complexity where negotiators may have been stretching to find common ground. Russell Long said the conference report could not pass unless it was renegotiated. Byrd said that “the bill is still alive. It would be absolutely ridiculous, after 14 months of working, not to produce a bill.” He promised to push ahead “until it is absolutely and obviously and indubitably impossible to think about getting a bill.”
Scoop Jackson had worked tirelessly for this legislation, despite the fact that he opposed it philosophically and disliked Carter personally. Now he was facing the strong possibility of its failure. Jackson compared seeking a compromise at this stage to “negotiating with the Russians,” which, given his view of the Soviet Union, was the harshest characterization he could summon up. He looked exhausted, visibly aging, causing his staff real concern for his health. “We are either going to do it in this Congress or it’s dead,” Jackson warned. “We will not have this problem again.”
Seeing that the situation was becoming dire, Carter finally overcame his aversion to getting his hands dirty. On August 18, he met with key conferees in both houses, and his efforts produced majority votes on both sides. He won over Jim McClure by agreeing to a compromise to move forward with the Clinch River Breeder reactor, a project that Carter had vehemently opposed, and won over Pete Domenici of New Mexico cheaply by promising to work very hard for passage of the bill when it hit the Senate floor.
A week later, the political roller-coaster ride continued, turning downward once again. On August 24, Long confirmed that he would vote against the conference bill. Dale Bumpers and Mark Hatfield, both conferees who had voted in favor, now reversed their positions because of their opposition to the breeder reactor compromise reached with McClure. The White House seemingly had no margin of error; concessions made to gain one senator’s vote often caused another senator to become an opponent.
Carter tried to elevate the argument. On August 31, he invited the critics of the legislation to the White House and urged them “to put aside any reservations [they] might have about specific details” to support the “critical measure.” He told business leaders that defeat of the bill would have a devastating impact on U.S. world standing, affecting the value of the dollar, trade balances, and inflation—an impact even more important than the bill itself. Administration leaders all admitted that the bill had faults, but argued that it was crucial to pass it, because nothing better would come along for years.
Finally, sensing that the senators’ resolve seemed to be softening after the intense lobbying, on September 8, with the lawmakers back from a brief recess for Labor Day, Byrd announced that the Senate would take up the legislation beginning September 11. Byrd had no assurances from the other side that a filibuster or other delaying tactics could be avoided. However, good news emerged when Ed Muskie, previously an opponent to deregulation, announced that he would support the compromise. Aides said Muskie had been swayed by the argument that defeating the bill would have negative repercussions internationally and by a Congressional Budget Office report that the bill would not cause excessive inflation or unfairly gouge homeowners.
Muskie’s stature in the Senate helped ensure that liberal opponents of deregulation would give the bill further serious thought. Nevertheless, opponents remained undaunted. Long and Clifford Hansen sent a mailgram to 110 CEOs criticizing the bill: “It does no honor to our national will to adopt a bad bill.”
The White House countered the opponents’ grassroots efforts with intensive lobbying and outreach of their own. On September 9, the bill received endorsements from the National Council of Mayors, the National Conference of State Legislators, and the Solar Energy Industries Association. The administration’s position was strengthening, but the opposition, coming from both consumer and oil and gas interests unwilling to compromise, remained fierce.
Byrd now predicted a week to ten days of debate, with periodic efforts to kill the bill by recommitting it to committee, and possible filibusters. He said his personal contacts with seventy senators, including those in the uncommitted bloc, had left him increasingly optimistic. “Seventeen months ago, I said this would be a ball game that would go into extra innings—we are now in those extra innings,” Byrd commented—not exactly an accurate recollection, given his repeated predictions of early victory.
On September 12, the Senate debated for a second day, and the outcome remained too close to call. Roughly forty senators were committed on each side, with a bloc of twenty undecided senators to determine the bill’s fate. Howard Baker said that he expected the motion to recommit to fail, and the cloture to fail, meaning that the bill would die in a filibuster. Jackson, who was managing the bill on the Senate floor, expressed confidence that cloture would pass because senators would want to give Carter’s priority legislation an up or down vote. Bumpers veered back to supporting the bill, saying he would take his fight against the breeder reactor to another piece of legislation. Gary Hart expressed a willingness to support another bill if the opponents could come up with one, but said that the compromise “does what needs to be done.”
Vice President Mondale practically moved to his Capitol office for the week, lobbying continuously for the administration, while President Carter was at Camp David mediating between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. Reporters could see Mondale going over vote counts with Jackson in the back of the Senate chamber. Six liberal Democrats who had previously opposed deregulation agreed to sign on: Adlai Stevenson, Tom Eagleton, Tom McIn
tyre, Pat Leahy, John Culver, and Dick Clark. They seemed to accept the argument that the bill would bring more gas into interstate markets, reducing shortages, and that gas prices were going up regardless, but that the bill would provide some protection for homeowners. The supporters were clearly gaining ground, and seemed close to having a majority, but certainly could not guarantee the votes to end a filibuster.
Byrd continued to work tirelessly on the delicate parliamentary situation. He desperately wanted to avoid a filibuster, which could kill the bill, and he continued to offer the opponents—on both sides of the spectrum—ample time to make their arguments in the hope that they would agree to proceed without a filibuster. On September 14, he engineered a breakthrough agreement. Opponents would be allowed to offer numerous motions to recommit the bill, with the first coming on September 19, but in exchange for the extended debate time, opponents agreed not to mount a filibuster. If none of the motions to recommit succeeded, the Senate would vote up or down on the legislation on September 27. Byrd’s patience and persistence had produced the agreement that was needed. In his memoir, Carter would describe Byrd’s work on the natural gas legislation as “prodigious.”
On September 19, Jackson, Byrd, and the supporters of the bill defeated the first motion to recommit by a vote of 50–39. Jackson was exuberant, finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in which he had been stuck for fourteen months. “They made their maximum effort [on recommittal] today,” Jackson said. “They even threw in the Alaskan pipeline to try to get votes. We won’t get 59 votes for the conference report, but we will get a majority.” Metzenbaum vowed to continue the fight, trying to fashion a motion to recommit that would achieve broader support, but the end was finally in sight.
On September 27, the Senate approved the natural gas compromise legislation by a vote of 57–42. President Carter said of the Senate vote: “I think it proves to our nation and the rest of the world that we, in this government, particularly Congress, can courageously deal with an issue and one that tests our national will and ability.” Byrd called the bill “a legislative milestone.” Abourezk called it “a lousy, stinking bill.” On October 15, Congress finally adjourned after staying in session all Saturday and through Sunday evening. The Senate had to break another Abourezk filibuster at 1 a.m., and at last passed the conference bill 60–17.
After eighteen months, Jimmy Carter could finally claim significant, if incomplete, progress on a national energy plan. The natural gas legislation, which ended a thirty-year debate on the pricing issue, was a notable accomplishment. The Senate had fulfilled its role as a “national mediator,” reconciling the differences between consuming and producing interests. Several of Carter’s less controversial measures, dealing with appliance efficiency standards and tax credits for energy conservation measures, became law. But the plan as enacted did not include several important measures, including proposed taxes on gasoline, “gas-guzzling” autos, and industrial users of oil and gas. Most significantly, a tax on oil, to be rebated to consumers—a centerpiece of Carter’s program—had not come close to enactment.
Carter noted in his diary that the energy legislation that he signed on November 9 would deliver 60–65 percent of the energy savings that he had sought. That estimate, if public, would have been subject to intense debate. What was certain, however, was that Carter and the Congress would have to face the brutally difficult energy issues again—very soon.
LONG DAYS AND NIGHTS, suspense, and adrenaline mark the closing week of any Congress. In tense, crowded rooms throughout the Capitol, conferees meet to hammer out final agreements, then rush to the floor to memorialize them before they could fall apart. The Ninety-fifth Congress was no exception, as the senators and their staffs worked virtually nonstop to finalize other major legislation. Congress approved the first overhaul in forty-four years of the laws regulating grazing on public lands. It also enacted legislation that, for the first time, would charge fees to commercial users of inland waterways. Unable to override Carter’s veto, Congress gave him a sweet victory by agreeing to legislation that met his specifications for funding water projects.
The Airline Deregulation Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act were completed, major accomplishments for Kennedy and his staff. The Civil Service Reform Act, the Ethics in Government Act, and the Presidential Records Act—all products of Abe Ribicoff’s Governmental Affairs Committee—also reached the finished line successfully. Once the committee members put the rancor and divisions of the Lance hearings behind them, the committee went on to have a banner year.
Legislation to establish inspectors general (IG) in twelve major departments and agencies, to consolidate the audit and investigative functions, was a key piece of the Democratic effort to combat fraud, waste, and abuse. The legislation originated in the House; as one of the staff counsels to the Governmental Affairs Committee, I became responsible for shepherding it through the committee and the Senate and reconciling it with the House version.
Tom Eagleton had taken the lead on the bill. A former prosecutor and hardnosed investigator, he also had a strong sense of the political appeal of the idea. After two days of hearings, he told me that we should strengthen the independence of the IGs by giving them a direct line reporting to Congress. He also told me to prepare a hearing on the Defense Department, which was not covered in the House bill. A member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Eagleton hated the amount of waste and fraud at DoD that he had seen as a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
The hearing on the Defense Department had been illuminating; there was no doubt that DoD could do a great deal to improve its audit and investigative functions. But the military had had inspectors general for decades, and they performed different functions than what we were proposing for the civilian agencies. Moreover, each service had its own audit and investigative units. Getting an understanding of everything they were doing would be difficult, and forcing the Pentagon to accept the same model as the civil agencies would be impossible. I spent many hours late at night writing a committee report on the IG legislation, including a section on DoD. The Armed Services Committee staff spent only minutes advising me that if Governmental Affairs wanted to include DoD in the legislation, we could forget about passing an IG bill.
I went to Eagleton’s office to tell him the bad news. I was sure he would see the wisdom of backing off and getting the legislation to cover the twelve civilian agencies. He didn’t.
“The legislation isn’t worth a damn if it doesn’t cover the Pentagon,” he said angrily. “That’s half the government and most of the waste, fraud, and abuse.” He told me that there would be no bill without the inclusion of DoD.
Shaken by his reaction, I walked back to my office, trying to figure out how I would explain it to my House counterparts. I took the cowardly way out and delayed calling. Fortunately, Eagleton called and asked me to come back to his office. Recognizing the realities, he instructed me to get the legislation done without DoD in the bill. But he started calling me “Neville,” for “Neville Chamberlain,” the disgraced British prime minister who had tried to appease Hitler. “Where’s your umbrella, Neville?” Eagleton would ask me the next few times we saw each other. Fortunately, his cleverness on the subject only lasted a couple of days.
With that problem resolved, the inspectors general legislation appeared to be sailing through to enactment. I had worked out an agreement with the House committee staff; the Senate would pass the legislation with certain changes, and the House would accept the changed bill, eliminating the need for a conference. Still, in the frenzied closing days of a Congress, nothing is over until it’s over. One morning, my assistant, Grace Allen, a grey-haired woman who always radiated calm, came into my office looking very worried.
“Ira, Chairman Brooks is on the phone for you,” Grace said.
“You mean Brooks’ staff?” I responded.
“No,” she said, “it’s the chairman himself.”
I only
knew Jack Brooks, the chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, by reputation. An experienced and savvy legislator, Brooks was a bald, beady-eyed Texan who had fought in the Pacific in World War II and was one of the few southerners to support the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Brooks was legendarily tough; he probably flossed with barbed wire. His calling me could not be good news.
“Hello, Mr. Chairman,” I said, trying to sound calm and upbeat.
“Shapiro, how are you, boy?” Brooks rasped.
“Good, Mr. Chairman,” I responded. “How are you?”
“Not good, son.” Brooks snapped. “The CIA amendment is screwing up the IG bill. You need to fix it.” He hung up the phone.
I had been working on the IG bill continuously for months. I knew every word of it, and every contentious issue. I had no idea what Brooks was talking about.
The phone on my desk rang. It was Eagleton.
“Ira, I just got off with Jack Brooks,” Eagleton boomed. “He’s furious about the CIA amendment. Says it will sink the bill. You have to fix it.”
I reached for courage to tell Eagleton that I had no idea what Brooks was talking about. But the phone line went dead as he hung up.
My Senate career, which had seemed so promising just a few minutes ago, flashed before my eyes. I didn’t know what to do. Somewhat numb, I started flipping through my files, looking for a file labeled “CIA amendment,” which I knew didn’t exist. I went down the hall to the men’s room to throw cold water on my face.
