New Mood on Capitol Hill

The fractious Congress may finally okay Carter's requests

Through nearly all of last year, Jimmy Carter seemed to Congress so lacking in clout with the voters that his legislative program could with impunity be delayed, hacked to bits or ignored. But when Congress reconvened last week, the President looked more like a political Charles Atlas, transformed by foreign crises from a 97-lb. weakling into a muscleman whose wishes had to be respected. Said House Democratic Floor Leader Jim Wright of Texas, using a different metaphor: "Members who 60 days ago considered Carter an albatross around their necks now consider him a life jacket."

The new mood showed immediately; Congress began moving with unaccustomed speed on some major presidential proposals, especially those designed to show national unity in the face of Soviet adventurism. Both Houses passed by lopsided majorities an act extending most-favored-nation trade status to China.

Some long-delayed parts of Carter's energy program began coming back to life too. At a White House breakfast, House Speaker Thomas P. ("Tip") O'Neill told Carter that a $227 billion windfall profits tax on oil companies--designated by the President as his No. 1 legislative priority--should be on his desk for signature sometime this week. Other important energy bills, O'Neill promised, will be passed and sent to the President by March 1. Included: establishment of an Energy Mobilization Board to speed fuel-producing projects, and of an Energy Security Corp. to spur development of synthetic fuels.

Whether the speed will continue is most doubtful. Election-year sessions of Congress are always intensely partisan affairs, and sounds of party conflict were rumbling last week beneath the foreign policy unity. Carter sent Congress a written 75-page State of the Union message touting his Administration's accomplishments in somewhat questionable language. Among other things, he claimed as a major achievement that "the decline in defense spending has been reversed"--totally ignoring his 1976 campaign pledge to cut it further. Republicans quickly rose to the bait. John Tower of Texas, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, said the document made "claims which border on the perfidious."

There appears to be less fuel for partisan wrangling in 1980 than in most presidential election years, however. The loudest fights usually come over domestic policy, and that is not what is preoccupying this Congress; its mind is on foreign affairs and defense. Says Tip O'Neill: "I think the mood out there is that we have to be prepared for conventional skirmishes, and the American people feel for the first time that we do not have that capability. I'm talking about the safety of the country, and you put that ahead of energy, inflation, balancing the budget and everything else."

Carter's domestic agenda offers fewer targets than usual for congressional critics: it is both short and old. Among the old: a hospital-cost containment bill that the House defeated last year; a new stand-by gasoline-rationing plan to replace one that the House shot down last spring; and a health-insurance scheme that Congress ignored in 1979, and probably will take no action on again this year. Carter said he would offer "few new initiatives," and the State of the Union message in fact contained only a handful. The most important: a $2 billion youth-employment plan; reorganization of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; a "comprehensive" program for safely disposing of nuclear wastes; and rewards and penalties to induce electric utilities to switch from oil to coal and other fuels.

Indeed, Carter's most newsworthy domestic stand concerned what he would not do; he announced opposition to any general tax cut because, he said, it might aggravate inflation. Though Republicans have been pressing for tax cuts aimed at stimulating investment, the Democratic majorities in Congress are disposed to back Carter.

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