Protecting Their Own Turf

How the House beat a bid to create a single energy committee

Three years ago, when Jimmy Carter presented to Congress an energy program that he termed "the moral equivalent of war," he began learning the consequences of one odd fact: the House of Representatives has no energy committee. Rather it has 83 committees and subcommittees that claim jurisdiction over parts of energy policy. One year ago, when Congress was still struggling to get some kind of energy bill passed, two rival House committees produced two rival plans. Nobody could work out a compromise.

Among the House's 34 committees, there is a special committee on committees, chaired by Jerry Patterson, 45, a bright and popular Democrat from Santa Ana, Calif. After six weeks of hearings, Patterson's group recommended creating an entirely new committee that would have prime jurisdiction over energy bills. The House leadership approved. Out of chaos would come some order.

But Patterson's plans soon ran into powerful opposition from the two rival committee chairmen who had sponsored the two rival energy plans. One was Arizona's lanky Mo Udall, chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee. A dedicated conservationist, he has fought for safeguards to protect the environment. The other was Michigan's short-tempered John Dingell, chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. He has strongly favored sweeping away state and federal regulations on energy matters.

Though the two chairmen disagreed on energy policy, both agreed that no new committee should take command of their battlefield. Udall was afraid the new committee would gain control of nuclear safety standards, a responsibility of his subcommittee. Dingell had more reason to worry: his subcommittee was going to be incorporated whole into the new body.

So the maneuvering began. Dingell drew up a substitute proposal that was almost entirely cosmetic. It would add the word energy to the title of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, but give it little extra authority --thereby creating an energy committee that would not have much to do with energy. Udall joined forces with Dingell and they got New York's Jonathan Bingham to sponsor the plan.

Faced with mounting opposition, Patterson formed an alliance of his own with the House Republicans, who also wanted a strong energy committee. Patterson worked out an extraordinary ploy: once his measure got on the floor, the Republicans and whatever Democrats Patterson could round up would vote to "save" the resolution by making it tougher.

It was too late. Dingell and Udall had zealously enlisted the support of leading Congressmen for the toothless Bingham substitute. One argument with powerful appeal to other committee chairmen: if the House can take away our powers today, it can take away yours tomorrow. When the measure came to the House floor last week, New Hampshire Republican James Cleveland decried the arrangements worked out by the old-line chairmen: "They sound to me as if they were agreements between feudal baronies drawn up away from the public eye ... Who are the parties to these treaties? What fiefdoms are they floating around?"

No use. On the key vote, the House agreed, 300 to 111, to substitute the Bingham proposal for the Patterson committee plan. Of the 22 chairmen of House standing committees, 19 voted against Patterson. "I really thought it would be closer," said the chastened Patterson. "From now on, I'm sticking to legislation, not reform." Said Connecticut's Toby Moffett, a Democrat who actively supported the Patterson plan: "It's another disturbing indication that the House is incapable of making itself efficient."

But Congress does get some work done. Last week, after a year of wrangling, the Senate finally approved the windfall profits tax. Levied on domestic oil revenues, which will rise because prices have been decontrolled, the tax is expected to raise $227.3 billion over the next ten years. Said President Carter: "It's good news for the whole country and, I think, also good news for the whole world."

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