January 28, 1965
Page 1532
Mr. LONG of Louisiana. Mr. President, S. 4 authorizes the expenditure of public funds for research and development to aid in preventing, controlling, and abating pollution of interstate waters, and for other purposes.
The research to be financed by these funds is intended to benefit the public to the greatest possible extent. It is natural, therefore, that the results of the research should be available to those whom the research is intended to benefit in the first place: The United States, the individual States, the general public, and the populations of many areas where water pollution problems are now serious or are expected to be serious in the future. The proposed amendment is an assurance and mandate that the intent and purpose of this legislation will be carried out
This amendment is similar to the provision unanimously approved by the Senate for the Coal Research and Development Act, the Helium Gas Act, the saline water bill, the disarmament bill, the mass transit bill, and the water resources bill. An additional provision has been added, however, to assure that the Government in any action for the vindication of its rights will not be denied adequate relief because of procedural obstacles.
What we are talking about is that when the Government makes $20 million available in grants to States and municipalities for them to do research, those people are not going to give away private patent rights with the Government's money, with the result that the private contractor would then be in a position to deny every other municipality in America, including the one that signed the contract, the benefit of the Government's $20 million in research money.
What has been happening to this research money is so bad that the men who signed the contract should be in jail.
I have before me a publication of the General Accounting Office showing, on page 6, that the Department of Defense awarded a contract to one of the biggest corporations in America, receiving many millions of dollars of Federal money, and taking out private patents which put them in a position to deny everyone the benefit of the Government's own research money. The Government is supposed to be licensed so that it can license someone to work in behalf of research for the Government, or on national defense.
Although these people are supposed to be permitted private patents to their own advantage, they seek a patent monopoly and they do not even tell the Government what they are developing.
At the time of the review, for example, we found that LMSC -- which is the Lockheed Co. -- had refused to discuss information on 58 subjects of interest to the Government. That was done under a contract which requires disclosure. Lockheed would not disclose information to the Government on 340 other subject inventions which had been delayed from 6 to 46 months -- as long as 4 years after the inventions were reported to the contractor, or by the employee inventors.
Imagine that. We give those people $12 billion for research. What do they do? They will not even tell the Government what it will get for the $12 billion.
Suppose they are trying to build a missile to shoot down an attack vessel. We would need to know what those people have discovered with our own money. We cannot find out. They will not tell the Government.
Director Webb is signing the contracts -- in my judgment -- in violation of the law. If they have the power to get away with this such administrators violate the law in this giveaway.
We must put it expressly into law that this research will be for the benefit of 180 million Americans, when it is made with Government money. Otherwise, we shall not be able to protect the Government's money.
I am happy to say that the distinguished Senator from New Mexico [Mr. ANDERSON] put amendments into the saline water research bill to see to it that the Government's rights in these discoveries would be for the benefit of all the people in America. Great headway is being made.
If we find a way to convert salt water into fresh water it will be done for the benefit of everyone in America and the world.
We will not have some robber baron getting the benefit of the Government's money, but it will be for the benefit of 180 million people, done with the benefit of their tax money.
This amendment should be in the bill, just as it was in the saline water research bill. It should be included in this bill, just as it was in the bill on coal research, and in the bill which was passed on helium, which was in charge of the Senator from New Mexico.
In my judgment, this is one of the serious faults in Government where it raises the point: Are these tax moneys to be spent for the benefit of the public in general, or are they to be spent for private gain?
In my judgment, taxing the American people for the private gain of an individual is corrupt and should be prevented.
I know that the Senator in charge of the bill does not want that to happen. The best way to see that it does not happen is to take the provision which is patterned after all the provisions adopted previously in other bills to which Senators have agreed.
It is essential that this money be spent on research, and not be given away to some private individual at the expense of the public interest.
I believe that the Senator from Maine is willing to accept the amendment. I hope very much that he will fight for it, in the event that we have some difficulty persuading the House to take it.
Mr. MUSKIE. In response to the statement made by the Senator from Louisiana, the amendment was not considered at the committee hearings, so we did not have an opportunity to study it.
Nevertheless, the fact is that the pattern has been established, in some instances, particularly with respect to the saline water research bill, and I am willing to accept the amendment and take it to conference, subject to such questions and discussions as we may have on the floor.
Mr. AIKEN. I should like to ask some questions. To what extent was this amendment considered in the committee?
Mr. MUSKIE. As I have just stated, Senator, it was not considered at all.
Mr. AIKEN. No witnesses at all were heard on the bill?
Mr. MUSKIE. No witnesses were heard.
Mr. AIKEN. Is it important?
Mr. MUSKIE. It is important.
Mr. AIKEN. Then why was it not considered in committee, if it had been considered in other committees at other times? Why was it not considered in committee at this time? Is not this
amendment more important than the Cooper amendment to which the Senator from Maine has taken strong exception?
Mr. MUSKIE. It is of the utmost importance, as the Senator from Louisiana has stated so eloquently.
Mr. AIKEN. But it comes in at the last minute. The Senator from Louisiana spoke of the robber barons. He spoke with reference to the oil companies, the uranium companies, and the helium companies. It seems to me ridiculous to vigorously oppose an amendment such as the one offered by the Senator from Kentucky on the ground that it duplicates the provisions in the Administrative Procedure Act, and yet accept the far-reaching amendment offered by the senator from Louisiana. It is nonsense. It is ridiculous. We wonder who is back of it?
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator from Vermont yield?
Mr. AIKEN. I yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator is implying that I am speaking for someone who is hidden in the mists of obscurity. I am doing no such thing. So far as the Senator from Kentucky is concerned, I was not opposing his amendment vigorously. He was opposing my bill vigorously, and I was undertaking to defend it against the allegations which he made as to its merit. That is all. I did not pillory the Senator from Kentucky, did not intend to do so, and do not intend to do so. What I did, in the case of the Senator from Kentucky, has no relevance to this question. I have indicated my attitude. The Senator can disagree with it or not. I see no reason for him to question my motivation concerning it. I stated that there was no hearing held on this point.
Mr. AIKEN. I do not question the Senator's motivation.
Mr. MUSKIE. I stated, in addition to that question, that there has been a pattern of some sort set in this respect in research programs sponsored with the Government's money, and that I was willing to accept the amendment and take it to conference for such consideration as the conference wished to make. I am not an advocate of the amendment. I could not be, because I have no basis for it.
Mr. AIKEN. The Senator from Maine is willing to accept the amendment offered by the Senator from Louisiana on almost the same basis that he was willing to reject the amendment offered by the Senator from Kentucky, on the ground that there is already provision for it, and that the precedent is established. I merely ask, what is the reason for bringing it in at this time when it was not proposed before the committee, and no one had been notified that the bill was coming up? I suspect that I will support the amendment. I am pretty sure that I would support the amendment offered by the Senator from Louisiana if it were offered on its own merits but I will admit I am not happy about the manner in which it is being brought up at this time.
I am not an advocate of the oil companies, the helium companies, or the uranium companies. I believe that the amendment is probably a good one, but it should be offered in its own right and not sprung upon the Congress or the Senate without any previous consideration being given to it.
Mr. LONG of Louisiana. Mr. President, several years ago I conducted hearings on the subject and informed the Senate that any time a bill came before the Senate which would provide for research, I proposed to raise this issue: Is this research going to be for the benefit of 180 million Americans, or for the benefit of one private corporation?
If we are going to tax the American people for the private gain of some company or a single individual, I propose to raise that issue.
Now we are about to authorize a research program. In 1947, 17 years ago, the Senator from Vermont [Mr. AIKEN] was a sponsor of an amendment along exactly the same principles I am for, on all Government research. He was fighting to defend the public interest in exactly the same way I see it.
An amendment was proposed in the National Science Foundation Act concerning this research, in order to protect the Government.
I salute the Senator from Vermont for having acted in the national interest in this fashion.
I raised this same issue on the coal research bill, and on the urban transit bill. I raised the same issue on the disarmament bill, and I am not in a position to know what these requests are going to accomplish.
Whenever a research bill is brought before the Senate the junior Senator from Louisiana can be expected to offer such an amendment and to raise the question whether the research will be for the benefit of the 180 million people of the country who pay for it, or whether it will be used exclusively for the benefit of private groups.
Something has been said about oil companies. I am not embarrassed to be called an oil Senator. Anyone who wishes to do so can call me an oil or gas Senator. I will continue to look after the interests of the State of Louisiana, just as I expect every other Senator to look after the interests of his own State. The oil industry does its own research. It has never asked the Government to finance its research. It has never come to Washington to ask for money with which to conduct its research. If it ever does come I will offer my amendment to any bill of that kind that may be proposed. No one has any right to use Government money for his own advantage.
Who proposes to defend this practice? The Lockheed Corp. has been holding out on the Government for 4 years on discoveries it has made with Government money. Who wants to defend a practice like that? Who wants to justify it? That research was paid for by taxpayer money.
Senators know that today we do not have a missile that can shoot down a Russian missile aimed at the United States. The reason could well be that important technical and scientific information has been withheld. The Lockheed Corp. will not tell us what it has found out in its research financed with tax money. They will not tell us what they have discovered with that money. If they can get away with this in dealing with the Federal Government, they can do this in dealing with the individual States.
The only way to stop this thing is to spell it out in the law by stating that they cannot get away with this sort of thing. What I propose has been done before. We did it in the Atomic Energy Act. It has created no problem in connection with that act. Frankly, Mr. President, if we look in the areas where the Government research has been in the public interest, with no private patents granted, we find that those are the areas in which we are ahead. In atomic energy, we are ahead. That research is available to everyone. No one can hold out on the results of research in that field.
In the field of agriculture we have had a research program without private patents. In that field we are far ahead of the Russians. They cannot possibly catch up with us, even with our help. That is how far ahead we are in areas where we did it in the public domain.
Whenever we let certain individuals keep research results for as long as 4 years and have private patents, we cannot keep up with the Russians.
Here it is proposed to go on with a new research program which can allow someone to use his power with a Governor to see to it that Federal money is used for his private advantage, instead of in the public interest.
The Senate has acted on this issue time and time again during the past 2 years. Its answer has been consistent. Its answer today should be consistent also.
We are dealing with a new research program that is proposed to be established. The States will handle Federal money. If they discover something worthwhile, it should be available to every citizen in the country. The public should be given the benefit of its tax money.
I hope my good friend from Vermont will support the amendment, because he sponsored a similar amendment 17 years ago.
Mr. AIKEN. Mr. President, I have no doubt that I would support the proposal of the majority whip if it were properly offered. I object to the manner in which it is proposed and the manner in which it is brought before the Senate. We hear a great deal about precedents. I realize that there are many precedents. We have found some of them to be useful. However, most of our precedents have been established after mature thought and consideration.
What I am trying to do now is to ask that the Senate not establish the precedent of ramming major legislation down the throat of the Senate without previous notice or consideration. That is all I am asking.
I do not believe this is the place for this sort of amendment. No notice was given. The amendment was not printed. Let us not establish another precedent under which anyone in authority can ram major legislation down our throats without notice and without consideration.
Mr. PASTORE. Mr. President, I shall support the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana. The amendment is very simple. All that the amendment provides is that when taxpayers' money is used in research, anything that is discovered belongs to all the people. It is as simple as that. I cannot understand that we would be setting a precedent that should alarm anyone. It is a simple amendment.
What the Senator from Louisiana is doing is saying that where taxpayers' money is used in a research project the result that is discovered belongs to all the people because all the people gave money to the discoverer in order to have the opportunity to make the discovery. That is how simple the issue is.
I do not see why anyone should be alarmed about any precedent being established. I shall wholeheartedly support the amendment, in good conscience.
Mr. AIKEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. PASTORE. I yield.
Mr. AIKEN. I am not opposing the principle set forth by the Senator from Louisiana. I am opposing the method by which it is being put forth. I object to anyone in official standing or even the whole party across the aisle ramming major legislation down the throats of Senators without previous notice or consideration. That is all I am saying.
Mr. PASTORE. We do it every time. We do it all the time.
Mr. AIKEN. It should not be done. I know it is done, but it should not be done.
Mr. PASTORE. It is done every time.
Mr. AIKEN. I know, but it should not be done.
Mr. PASTORE. It is no novel idea to bring up an amendment unexpectedly and by surprise. That is how a Senator can get his name on the front page.
Mr. MILLER. Mr. President, the Senator from Rhode Island has said that this is a very simple amendment. That is the difficulty with the amendment. It is too simple. It is not just a matter of whether or not we take taxpayers' money and turn it over to a private contractor to be used entirely for research purposes and the contractor does not spend any of his own money. We have no problems with that kind of situation. At least, I do not have any difficulty with it. It is not as simple as that. In some cases a contractor would receive $100,000 from the Federal Government and he would put up another $100,000, or perhaps $200,000, $300,000, or $400,000.
Are the Senators from Rhode Island and Louisiana willing to say, because the Federal Government put up $100,000 and the private contractor put up $300,000, that it is fair that the whole result should go to the Federal Government?
Mr. PASTORE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MILLER. I shall yield in a moment. Are they willing to say that all of the benefit should go to the Federal Government? Last year there was a hearing before the Joint Economic Committee. The distinguished Senator from Illinois will recall that this very problem was raised and discussed at length by some of the witnesses. It was indicated that there were difficult problems in the allocation with respect to the results of research.
Mr. PASTORE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MILLER. In some cases a 50-50 division might be fair. In other cases an allocation of 100 percent to the Federal Government might be fair. In some cases it might be fair to give one-third, while in other cases it might be fair to give two-thirds. The problem is not as simple as that. That is the difficulty I have with the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. LONG of Louisiana. Does the Senator from Iowa know how the administrators use their discretion? Wherever administrators have had discretion, they have given it all away.
Mr. MILLER. I would not want to apologize for what the administrators did in these matters. The Senator from Iowa and the Senator from Louisiana probably could get together on a fair and equitable allocation where it was indicated. The difficulty with the Senator's amendment is that, merely because $1 of Federal money goes into some research project, the entire result would have to go to the Federal Government. I do not believe that is fair.
All of this is raising an increasingly serious problem. The Joint Economic Committee went into this subject last year.
Mr. LONG of Louisiana. The amendment states in effect: "If you have some background that you have obtained, we will protect your use of it." The provisions of the amendment are contained .in the Agricultural Act, in the Atomic Energy Act, in the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, and in a great many other acts. Everyone who has been affected by it likes it very much. Those in Government who have had experience with it say that people come to them and put pressure on them. They may be people who have made large political contributions. They come and ask the administrators to give away the Government's rights. The Government can say, "No: we cannot do that."
That is how interested parties look at it. They do not want that type of discretion because there is so much in it for some contractors. The discretion would be used to give it all away. I make that statement because when administrators have had the discretion they have given it away. A proposal was made that before patent rights could be given away, a study should be made to determine the value of the right and knowledge of what would be given away.
Do Senators know what administrators would do? They would give away the results of research no matter what the right would consist of, for that is what has happened when discretion has been given to them. If the Senate wishes to give the administrators discretion, we might as well give it all away and be done with it.
Mr. MILLER. The Senator has said, "I have not read the proposal," and then he refers to background patent protection. I am not talking about background patent protection. I am talking about patent developments that may grow out of specific research, the background patents to the contrary notwithstanding. We are not talking about the same problem. If the Senator wishes to refer to the background patents, all I am saying is that if the amendment offered by the Senator from Louisiana -- and, incidentally, I think it would be most beneficial if all Senators had a copy to look at -- had provided that instead of all of the benefits going to the Federal Government, language something like "the Federal Government's fair and equitable share in the information, copyrights, uses, processes, patents, and other developments resulting from that activity will be preserved," then I think we would have a fair and equitable amendment.
So far as uniformity with respect to other laws is concerned, I grant that the proposal is in line. But that does not mean that those provisions are right. Last year we had hearings before the Joint Economic Committee which indicated that serious problems were arising because of these other uniform provisions.
The Senator from Louisiana, I believe, could make a contribution if he would modify his amendment and let the House of Representatives look it over to see whether or not the proposal might be a step in the right direction in getting away from these harsh results. I believe it would be an improvement to do so, and I would support an amendment with that modification in it, because I think it would be an improvement. But I do not think that we ought to take a meat-ax approach to everything that happens as a result of research.
Mr. LONG of Louisiana. Mr. President, my friends on the other side of the aisle start by saying that the amendment ought to be studied, and that such a proposal should not be brought before the Senate as a surprise.
I point out that the procedure proposed has been adopted by Congress with relation to every research bill that has been passed during the past 4 years. We have done it repeatedly. It is identically the same language, so far as the requirements in the contracts are concerned, that we have voted for time and time again.
It is the suggestion of the Senator from Iowa that is on trial. That is the one that has not been tried. No one knows what his suggestion would do. We all know how my proposal would work.
Atomic Energy Commission contracts include a requirement that the result of research be available generally. Admiral Rickover has said that there has never been a problem. He has said he has too many contractors to do research for him. He has said that the difficulty is that he does not have enough contracts to go around.
Parallel work is being done on salt water conversion. That activity is almost identical with what we would attempt to do under the bill. We are trying to clean up water. The same problem in water control is involved. There has been no problems, however, with respect to the provision which I have proposed. It works fine.
The type of provision proposed, word for word, in the controlling section is identical with what has been the law for 50 years. If we insert similar language into the bill now before the Senate, we know how it will work. If we did it the way the Senator from Iowa has proposed, no one knows how it would work. If we inserted a provision permitting discretion, let us face it: We might as well give the results of the research away.
Let us include a provision that we know has worked in the past.
Mr. MILLER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. LONG of Louisiana. I yield.
Mr. MILLER. I am not saying that my proposal is perfect. But I do think that it is pretty difficult to refute the point that the Federal Government is entitled only to its fair and equitable share, and to nothing more and nothing less.
The difficulty with the Senator's amendment is that he is proposing that the Government be entitled to everything. He falls back on the fact that a similar uniform provision appears in some other acts. But that does not make it right.
I am sorry that the proposal was not before the subcommittee for hearings. The subcommittee did a very fine job on what it had to work with. The bill is most complex. I would regret to see the bill go back for further hearings with respect to the Senator's amendment.
But what I would like to suggest is that the Senator either modify his amendment or be content to file it as a bill and let the bill before the Senate stand on its own two feet. Let us get it going. I am sure that the Senator could see to it that proper action would be taken on this bill. Let us do a job in this area for once.
I think the amendment needs study. I believe it needs hearings. I think it needs action, too, because the uniform provisions to which the Senator has referred have caused a considerable amount of difficulty.
If we say that administrators have abused their discretion and therefore we will not give them any discretion, I do not know how we are ever going to move. Great discretion is given to administrators. We have to repose a certain amount of confidence in their discretion, regardless of who the administrators may be. I believe it would be proper to give them discretion in cases such as the one we are now considering; and if there are abuses, we shall clean them up, too.
Mr. PASTORE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. LONG of Louisiana. I yield to the Senator from Rhode island.
Mr. PASTORE. Is the Senator from Rhode Island correct in assuming that the money which will be devoted to research projects under the bill would be all public money?
Mr. MUSKIE. That is what we have in mind.
Mr. PASTORE. No private moneys would be involved?
Mr. MUSKIE. It is conceivable that we might find some situation in which some person has put his private money into a project, although that is not likely. But in the past we have had research programs in which a contractor would do the research
Mr. PASTORE. How would it be conceivable that an individual would put his own private money into such a project?
Mr. MUSKIE. It is conceivable that private money would be involved. For example, with relation to the program involving the separation of storm and sanitary sewers, it is conceivable that some private organization might be interested in contributing a solution, a technique, or a formula, and would be willing to put up some of its money and some of its efforts provided it got some assistance from Federal, State, or local governments. In that event some private funds would be involved. I agree that it is not likely that it would be involved.