CAPITOL HILL was the scene of a veritable mass extinction earlier this
month 鈥� the sudden and sweeping disappearance of legislative proposals that
had preoccupied Congress for two years. These proposed laws lived brief
tumultuous lives, captured the national debate for a political moment and then
disappeared into the dustbin. There will be no fossil record.
This was, in some respects, a perfectly ordinary event in the ecology of
legislation. Every two years, Congress disbands until after election day, and
all the bills it has considered but failed to act on are simply thrown away.
The scale of this year鈥檚 extinction, however, was extraordinary.
Efforts to reform the nation鈥檚 healthcare system died first, buried under a
frantic lobbying campaign mounted by profiteers in the current system 鈥�
chiefly, insurance companies. A few days later, an effort to open up the
nation鈥檚 telecommunications network to competition died. This time, the
smoking gun was spied in the hands of the 鈥淏aby Bells鈥�. These are the huge,
profitable regional telephone monopolies. Under the proposed law, they would
have had to compete with other companies in offering local telephone
service.
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Practically every attempt to pass an environmental law bit the dust. For
instance, there was an attempt to revise, at long last, a law passed in 1872
that lets companies open up mines on governmentowned land and help themselves
to gold and copper for almost free. Environmentalists have been screaming
about this law for years. Two years ago, they finally got a friendly ear in
the White House. But with a week to go, in the face of opposition from the
mining industry, Congress gave up. The mining industry took out a full-page
advertisement in The Washington Post to express their thanks 鈥� for doing
nothing.
Then there was an attempt to change the much-maligned Superfund law. This
is the law that requires companies to pay for cleaning up toxic waste sites
that they have helped to create. Unfortunately, rather than cleanups, the law
has mainly spawned extraordinary legal battles over who should pay and how
much. The reform proposal had everything going for it. Environmentalists and
industrialists supported it, and the Clinton administration. But it, too, was
murdered, apparently in a jealous rage by Republican Congressional leaders who
simply couldn鈥檛 bear the notion of constructive compromise.
It was, opined The Washington Post, the 鈥渓east effective, most destructive,
nastiest Congress in 50 years鈥�. But as in all mass extinctions, a few
legislative species were able to thrive in ecological niches offered by
Congress. Witness, for instance, a bill that requires that people use more
good old fashioned ink made from nontoxic vegetable products. Also a law
protecting California deserts sneaked by, but only after the Senate heard the
entire bill read aloud at the behest of Republican senators 鈥� a two-and-a-
half-hour ordeal.
FOR a few brief moments last month, it seemed as if the decade-long
moratorium on government funding for research on human embryos and in vitro
fertilisation would end this year. But now that seems like an optimistic
timetable. Realistically, it could be nine months or more before the first
grant is delivered to expectant researchers.
Why the delay? After all, a special panel convened by Harold Varmus,
director of the National Institutes of Health, concluded that embryo research
was both scientifically important and ethically justifiable. Moreover, the
Clinton administration is not as influenced by the religious right and their
pro-life/anti-abortion allies as were the Bush and Reagan administrations that
maintained the funding ban. And it was Congress that last year passed the
legislation aimed at lifting the moratorium.
So where鈥檚 the problem? Well, the answer seems to be Congressman Robert
Dornan, a Republican from California. Dornan doesn鈥檛 mind being described as
an arch-conservative. In June, he wrote a letter, signed by 30 other
legislators, urging Varmus to tread carefully before funding embryo research.
On September 19, he and his friends wrote again, telling Varmus that it would
be a mistake to fund any human embryo research, especially research on embryos
created just for scientific study. 鈥淭he American people will be justifiably
outraged and appalled if their tax dollars are used to create human life in a
laboratory dish only to have it thrown out with the trash when the scientists
are finished with their bizarre experiments,鈥� Dornan said in a prepared
statement.
Whether Dornan鈥檚 sabre-rattling or some other bugbear is the cause, grants
for embryo research must now wait for official guidelines on the dos and
don鈥檛s of such research. And Varmus may choose to implement a recommendation
from his panel to create an ad hoc team to review the suitability of each
grant. That, say insiders, could add months to the approval process.
Plus ca change, plus c鈥檈st la me藛me chose.