When the Senate Worked for Us: The Invisible Role of Staffers in Countering Corporate Lobbies by Michael Pertschuk

Author:Michael Pertschuk [Pertschuk, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Advocacy, Public Policy, Legislative Branch, Political Science, Political Process, American Government, General
ISBN: 9780826521668
Google: b7wpEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 34409287
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Published: 2017-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

8

The Flights of the Bumblebees

By the fall of 1970, all the Senate Commerce Committee staff members—not just those working on consumer protection—were itching for Bumblebeehood. Some would bring their creativity and entrepreneurial spirit to the newly pressing issue of energy conservation and the wide range of environmental hazards never before faced by the committee. Others would tackle the list of Magnuson-led consumer protection bills that had readily cleared the Senate before 1968 but had been sidetracked for years by the House committee, which sought what Magnuson mockingly referred to as “a fair advantage.” Those working on transportation issues would upset the Senate committee’s habit of rubber-stamping federal subsidies for the maritime and surface transportation industries by proposing regulatory legislation.

Taking on the State Department and Fourteen Other Countries to Save the Oceans

Among the staff members who chafed under the load of uninspiring non-consumer issues they had been assigned to deal with was Manny Rouvelas. Nurtured by Jerry for his potential as a Bumblebee from the time he was a progressive undergraduate activist at the University of Washington, Rouvelas had been hired as counsel for the Merchant Marine Subcommittee. His assignment amounted to little more than helping Magnuson ensure that subsidies continually flowed from the federal treasury to help support US shipyards, US flag shipping companies, and US labor. Magnuson was a strong supporter of the merchant marine and was one of the most powerful members of the Merchant Marine Subcommittee, whose jurisdiction embraced legislation vital to one of Washington State’s economic engines: the great ports and thriving merchant shipping throughout the Pacific. But Magnuson also cared about fisheries and oceanography and was developing increasing environmental awareness and concern. Rouvelas had plunged into teaching himself what he needed to know to deal with merchant marine matters. Once he became aware of longstanding merchant marine safety and environmental hazards, dating from the early years of ocean shipping, he was convinced that the committee had to take some action to curb these hazards.

Rouvelas’s worries about maritime safety were aggravated by the taunts of his officemate, the staff member for the committee’s Aviation Subcommittee, who asked, “How is it that airplanes fly at 550 miles an hour in three dimensions and they don’t bump into each other very often, whereas ships float around in two dimensions, moving ten kilometers an hour, and they keep colliding?” (The problem was eventually solved by the Bridge to Bridge Radio Telephone Act of 1971, which replaced the customary whistles, toots, and flags.)

Rouvelas was soon ready to test his relationship with Magnuson and to build relationships with the three other powerful members of the Merchant Marine Subcommittee: Senator Russell Long, from Louisiana, which, like Washington, had a thriving port in its merchant marine economy, Senator Daniel Inouye, from Hawaii, which was economically dependent on low-cost ocean shipping, and Senator Ernest Frederick “Fritz” Hollings of South Carolina. Rouvelas would need their support, as well as Magnuson’s, to change the committee’s focus from pampering the merchant marine industry to regulating it.

Rouvelas had

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