PC/WI: More Joint Committees on Atomic Energy

I don't know much about US congressional history, so this may be a stupid idea, but here goes...

The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy was a somewhat unique institution in congress, especially in its first seven years. Its primary task was overseeing the Atomic Energy Commission, but it went well beyond the usual watchdog role to being a simultaneous advocate for the AEC within Congress and helping to set AEC policy - for example, one source says the idea of PAL locks actually originated in the JCAE. The JCAE and the AEC had, for many years, a symbiotic relationship; especially early on, the JCAE tended to badger the AEC commissioners about whether they could use more money rather than trying to find savings, and not infrequently insisted on restoring parts of the budget that the OMB had cut. The unique JCAE-AEC relationship explains a lot of why the AEC was able to do as much as they did for as long as they did without being terribly constrained by budget.

There were a lot of reasons why this happened. The JCAE was the only permanent joint committee with legislative authority, including, after 1954, authority over appropriations bills. They had a unique ability to hire staff as they wanted with salaries they set, rather than being limited like other committees. The secrecy and technical obscurity of much of what the AEC did, along with its self-evident importance to the nation, tended to enhance the power within Congress of those select few who oversaw it. The law creating the AEC gave the JCAE an unusual degree of access to their operations, requiring them to be kept "fully and currently informed" of what was going on and frequently sending JCAE staff for personal inspections of AEC operations. Unlike most committees, the JCAE was considered an "extra committee", so prospective members did not have to give up membership on other committees to join. And, more informally, the JCAE tended to recruit primarily members who already had considerable stature, and had an unusual degree of internal coherence and a sense of a common mission; although there were times when they split - such as over the Dixon-Yates contract or the public-private power controversy - most of the time they tended to work together to advance a mutual agenda in Congress.

What if Congress adopted the JCAE as a model for permanent joint committees overseeing other technical programs, like space travel and the response to the oil shocks? The JCAE was an imperfect model - oversight tended to turn into collaboration - but it was a model for Getting Things Done. I'm not sure if you could actually replicate that secret sauce, or that it would necessarily be a good thing if you could, but I thought I'd throw it out there and see what those more expert on legislative matters than myself think.

(Note: Here's a good online source on the history of the JCAE. Warning: pdf)
 
So, you're looking for more Washington committees on advancing technological or social progress that in effect skirt oversight in order to avoid partisan stupidity and are able to accelerate the rate of that progress?
 
So, you're looking for more Washington committees on advancing technological or social progress that in effect skirt oversight in order to avoid partisan stupidity and are able to accelerate the rate of that progress?

Something like that. I'm also wondering if it would be a way for the legislature to claw back some of the power they've lost to the executive over the years. Something I forgot to mention in the OP is that one of the sources of the JCAE's power was that they held a legislative veto over a number of AEC activities, such as transferring some kinds of nuclear information abroad.

Edit to Add: I'd add that there was more to the JCAE than just avoiding oversight. For that matter, they did oversee the AEC; they just oversaw them as "insiders".
 
Last edited:
Something like that. I'm also wondering if it would be a way for the legislature to claw back some of the power they've lost to the executive over the years. Something I forgot to mention in the OP is that one of the sources of the JCAE's power was that they held a legislative veto over a number of AEC activities, such as transferring some kinds of nuclear information abroad.

I would say it is possible, but challenging. The AEC was a unique situation, namely that it was tasked with turning a primarily military technology into one for civil use. Now, it is possible to do this for the space race and for a response to the oil crisis, but the problems there are levels of importance. It would probably work nicely after the energy crisis, but you'd have to get the United States to fully commit to the work they need to make the country consume rather less imported energy, of which there will invariably be massive conflicts over how to do that and what degree should the various options get consideration.
 
I would say it is possible, but challenging. The AEC was a unique situation, namely that it was tasked with turning a primarily military technology into one for civil use. Now, it is possible to do this for the space race and for a response to the oil crisis, but the problems there are levels of importance. It would probably work nicely after the energy crisis, but you'd have to get the United States to fully commit to the work they need to make the country consume rather less imported energy, of which there will invariably be massive conflicts over how to do that and what degree should the various options get consideration.

In the case of the energy crisis, it seems like you'd also have to have one agency in charge of the response for the prospective Joint Committee on the Energy Crisis to oversee. Probably pick a subset of the response that can be reasonably separated out - stuff like synthetic fuels, battery R&D, that kind of thing - and put them in one specific agency with a clear mandate. Otherwise the JCEC ends up running around all over the government rather than developing a strong relationship with one agency.

I wonder if it would actually make any difference in the space race. We were already shoveling money into NASA in the 60s; it's hard to see how they could get any more. But they might be able to better protect them after they land on the moon.

What other tasks might the model be applicable to? The 9/11 commission recommended adopting the JCAE as a model for a permanent joint committee to oversee intelligence and counterterrorism. Maybe the National Science Foundation, if you could get broader buy-in about the importance of basic R&D?
 
Sweet idea

As an ordo-liberal I'd love say an American MITI or as you've shown, a new flavor of JCAE to facilitate American technical development in a broader scope.

The big problem with JCAE AIUI is that it carried the baggage of being a military skunk works (secrecy and inside baseball with contractors that didn't let a lot of fresh air technically or politically) in how to manage things, favoring the same good 'ol boys all along.

Congress is a tad more responsive to the public for its own reasons.
They have to get elected. The folks in JCAE actually in middle management and below wouldn't be.

Nixon went on several rants about the "permanent government" of civil servants that didn't execute his wished with the proper alacrity that IMO poisoned the well for every administration afterward, where the civil service got run by political hacks appointed by the President, creating the crevasse between "leadership" and the folks actually executing and interpreting policies.

NIH handled biomedical research better w/o needing to be the one-stop-shop, but it took a lot of wrangling b/c it started and continued to be largely open to the press/public at every step. Sure, NIH became a handmaiden to Big Pharma with just as much distortion of basic to applied research being funded amongst other warts.

The point of my reply is that a more robust NSF to identify promising researchers and distribute grants and JCAE working together to fund and facilitate research could have tremendous impacts on what's studied, pursued, and developed. Having an apolitical civil service that communicates well with the public would do a lot to allow consistent policies to be formulated and executed despite the political silly seasons in Congress spazzing about misunderstood or just plain misguided ideas.
 
Last edited:
You'd have to have the Democrats in instead of Ike, there were favorable noises to such things, but the Republicans weren't playing ball iirc.
 
You'd have to have the Democrats in instead of Ike, there were favorable noises to such things, but the Republicans weren't playing ball iirc.

Huh, that's the first I'd heard of that. Do you know what sort of fields they were thinking of establishing Joint Committees for?
 
Top