GOVERNMENT

CONGRESSIONAL OUTLOOK '96

David J. Hanson, Bette Hileman, Wil Lepkowski, Janice R. Long, and Linda Ross Raber, C&EN Washington

The winds of change were at gale force when the 104th Congress convened last January. Newly empowered Republicans were promising a complete overhaul of the federal government.

The House did its part. It gave its seal of approval to 30 bills implementing the Contract With Americaoriginally there were just 10signed by some 300 House Republican candidates. And the House did it all within the first 100 days of the first session, as Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) had promised.

The bills that implement the contract could have a major impact on the U.S. chemical communi- ^** -... ty. House Republicans set out to, among ^f^, ^*'*'^y many other things, make revolution- y*& ~* ^&~*m

ary changes in the setting and en- .^L* v^ "> forcement of environmental and safety o k / fy and health regulations; provide major tax ... ^/JA^ % breaks for companies and individuals; and re- x ^ ^jjfj^ \ form the legal system by establishing a national "*% product liability law, limiting securities fraud litigation, and making the loser pay in certain federal cases.

However, very little of the legislation implementing the contract made it through the Senate this past yearalmost every bill has provoked a Democratic filibuster. And of those bills that did reach President Clinton's desk, three were signed and two were vetoed.

The bills Clinton has signed require Congress to adhere to the same employment laws that private companies and the rest of the federal government must comply with, pro-hibit Congress from imposing new federal requirements on state and local governments without also providing federal funds to assist them in meeting the new mandates, and reduce or eliminate some federal paperwork require-ments.

Clinton vetoed legislation that would have made it hard-er for attorneys to bring class-action suits charging compa-nies with securities fraud if, for instance, a firm's share price falls sharply despite previous predictions of robust perfor-mance. That veto was easily overridden in both the House and the Senate. The other bill that drew a veto was legisla-tion mandating the cuts necessary to meet the Republicans' pledge of balancing the federal budget by 2002.

For the moment, the Contract With America is somewhat

tattered. But all is not lost. The 104th Congress still has an-other year to run. Time enough to complete work on legis-lation implementing the contract and on a number of other issuesreauthorization of the Super-fund and Clean Water Acts, immi-

14 JANUARY 8,1996 C&EN

gration policy, modifications to the patent system, and nu-merous efforts to change the way individual agencies oper-atethat are on the congressional agenda. The following is C&EN's annual look at some of the issues that will be pre-occupying Congress in the coming months.

Budget. The effort to balance the federal budget will ei-ther overshadow every other issue during the second ses-sion of the 104th Congress or it will be just a small blip on the radar screen. It likely will be just a blip, if all goes ac-cording to plan.

On Nov. 20, Clinton signed legislation that states: "The Pres-ident and the Congress shall enact legislation in the

first session of the 104th Con-gress to achieve a balanced budget not later than

Illustrations by John Heinly

the fiscal year 2002 as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, and the President and the Congress agree that the bal-anced budget must protect future generations, ensure Medi-care solvency, reform welfare, and provide adequate funding for Medicaid, education, agriculture, national defense, veter-ans, and the environment. Further, the balanced budget shall adopt tax policies to help working families and to stimulate future economic growth."

As of Jan. 3, no such agreement had been reached, and the first session of the 104th Congress ended that day as required by the 20th Amendment to the Constitution. Portions of the federal government remained shut down as they had been for the pre-vious 19 days. Among the shuttered agencies were the Nation-al Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the

Department of Commerce, and the Envi-ronmental Protection Agency. But the principalsClinton, Gingrich, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) were once again meeting to try to resolve their differences.

How these differences are resolved will have an effect on the extent of any corporate and individual tax cuts. But the agreement won't have much effect on the future trend in federal discretionary spending, which includes all spending on civilian research programs and federal environmental, health, and safety programs. If they are lucky, spending for these programs will increase by an amount equal to infla-tion, but that's highly unlikely. They most likely will find themselves with less money to spend in fiscal 2002 than they have in fiscal 1996.

Environment. This year be-gins with extreme polarization, not only in assessments of how successful Congress was over the past 12 months, but also in the outlook for the coming year. Although only a few bills with environmental provisions (mostly riders) were passed by both houses and signed by President Clinton, important

groundwork was laid for effec-bills that are likely to become

law early this year, says the Chemical Man-ufacturers Association (CMA). "We're not prepared to call the majority

in Congress antienvironment," says CMA President Frederick L. Webber. "But I have to say

they haven't done very well in terms of message develop-ment, framing the debate. We are hopeful on all of these is-suesSuperfund, clean water, regulatory reform, RCRA [Resource Conservation & Recovery Act] reform," he adds.

JANUARY 8,1996 C&EN 15

GOVERNMENT

"We see progress being made

here and high potential for finishing action" this

year. However, environmental

leaders view the first session of the 104th Congress as the most antienvironmental in history. "Environmental protection

suffered important losses in the year's bruising onslaught, es-pecially in the areas of endangered species protection, ancient forest ecosystems, sustainable energy development, and the scientific research that provides the crucial foundation for en-vironmental progress," says Gregory L. Wetstone, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

He thinks that "in the coming year, we are going to see more of the same efforts to undermine environmental pro-tection. I am also very concerned about continued stealth attacksthe effort to use indirect assaults, such as riders on appropriation bills and sweeping efforts to roll back progress in the name of regulatory reformwhich carve loopholes into our laws."

Superfund, an issue on which all parties agreed as recent-ly as 1994, is a good example of the polarization that has occurred over the past year. The primary sources of conflict have centered on retroactive liability and who will pay for cleanup if retroactive liability is abolished. "We're very frustrated," Webber says. "A lot of months have been wast-ed over the insurance industry's liability scheme and basi-cally their refusal to put some money on the table." But he is optimistic that a Superfund bill will be passed in 1996. He predicts early action in the second session of the 104th Con-gress because "Dole and Gingrich and the Administration want to resolve this issue."

Webber would like to see retroactive liability totally re-pealed, but he believes a hybrid systemin which full retro-active liability applies to certain kinds of sites and a fair-share system is used for the restis the most likely outcome. There has to be some scheme to raise the $2.5 billion a year it costs to clean up Superfund sites because Superfund itself provides only about $1 billion annually, he says. He favors the bills de-veloped by Rep. Michael G. Oxley (R-Ohio), H.R. 2500, and Sen. Robert C Smith (R-N.H.), S. 1285.

Environmental groups are adamantly opposed to these bills because they would give responsible parties greater control over the quality of cleanup required and reduce public partic-ipation in the cleanup process. Also, they would exclude groundwater from industry's cleanup responsibilities. Envi-ronmental leaders expect that Clinton would veto such a bill.

Incidentally, the tax authority for Superfund, which in-cludes the corporate environmental income tax and chemical

and petro-leum excise taxes, expired on Dec. 31. If these taxes are to continue, they must be reautho-rized by Congress. And until the VA/ HUD appropria-tions bill is passed it has been vetoed once by Clinton officials will not have access to the Superfund Trust Fund to keep cleanup activities going. Consequently, EPA offi-cials have been preparing to shut down the Superfund pro-gram in 1996.

The clean water bill, H.R. 961, passed by the House in early spring is also a focus of dispute. Webber considers it a "pretty good reform bill." However, NRDC considers it a broadscale attack on protection of water because it would reduce treatment requirements for sewage discharges, roll back wetlands protection, ease water quality standards, and relax requirements for control of industrial pollution. "Un-der this bill, there is very little left of the law that has pro-duced a great deal of progress in this country in cleaning up our waters," Wetstone says. "My guess is that anything that resembles this bill is not going to move."

Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.L), chairman of the Senate Com-mittee on Environment & Public Works, has introduced much narrower legislation that addresses only storm water and wetlands. "We'd like to see the senator broaden his bill," Webber says.

However, there are some environmental bills that appear to have bipartisan support. One of them, H.R. 2036, introduced by Oxley, would reform land-disposal restrictions under RCRA. The bill would eliminate the need for a decharacter-ized wastewaste that is, for example, no longer explosive or corrosiveto meet RCRA treatment standards, if it meets Clean Water Act requirements for surface impoundments.

CMA is very much in favor of this legislation. Currently, there is a fundamental conflict between the Clean Water Act and RCRA over restrictions on placing wastes in surface impoundments. "If this isn't resolved soon, a court order will kick in at a cost of around $800 million a year to indus-try," says CMA spokesman Owen Kean. Since EPA and in-dustry are both interested in pushing H.R. 2036, the narrow bill that will remove the restrictions, Kean expects it to pass early this year. It won the approval of the House Commerce Committee late last month.

CMA also advocates reform of the corrective action pro-gram under RCRA. This concerns how much flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and common sense are brought to the remedia-

16 JANUARY 8,1996 C&EN

aiHcir

tion of wastes disposed of under RCRA. Currently, Super-fund-type cleanup standards are imposed on the remediation process at RCRA storage, treatment, and disposal facilities. "Over the life of the program, industry would be spending billions and billions of dollars in corrective costs that could be shorn if we got the right reforms in place," Webber says. On this issue, there will be bipartisan bills introduced in both houses fully supported by EPA, he notes.

Safe drinking water is another issue on which there seems to be relatively little polarization. A drinking water bill, S. 1316, passed the Senate unanimously in November, but no bill has yet been introduced in the House. The Senate bill re-quires risk assessment and cost-benefit analyses in setting standards for drinking-water contaminants, but it exempts the by-products of chlorinationthe trihalomethanesfrom the analyses. It allows for variances and waivers for local water systems and provides funds to upgrade these systems.

"The Republicans demonstrated in the Senate that if they are willing to step away from ideological attacks, they have the ability to move legislation," Wetstone says. "But it's not clear they will be able to do that in the House." The bill sort of takes "baby steps" backward, but it comes closer to something acceptable to both sides than any other environ-mental bill right now, he says.

FDA. An issue that has picked up surprising momentum over the past year is reform of the Food & Drug Adminis-tration's authorities and procedures. Freshmen House Re-publicans are seeking to make FDA reform a priority in 1996, and several industry groups have been lobbying hard for change. At least seven bills sponsored by Democrats and Republicans alike were introduced last year that would change the agency's functions. Topping the reform wish list are reducing the time needed for approval of new drugs and speedier FDA reviews of new medical devices.

Debate over FDA reform will focus on four issues, ac-cording to an analysis by the Congressional Research Ser-vice. These are loosening FDA's authority over premarket approval of new drugs, requiring fewer data or using data from other sources as a basis for granting premarket ap-proval to a drug, giving outside advisory groups more in-fluence over agency decisions, and making improvements in the way information on nonapproved drug uses is dis-seminated to the public.

Although FDA has shortened its review times for new drugs, there is a groundswell for even faster action, partic-ularly in the area of medical devices. Measures now before Congress have significant bipartisan support and might be viewed as a positive campaign issue during the upcoming election. If budget issues don't continue to crowd other work off the legislative calendar, FDA reform could pass this year.

Immigration. It is likely that a major immigration bill will become law by this summer. The only real question is whether legal and illegal immigration will be dealt with in the same bill. As it currently stands, Sen. Alan K. Simpson's (R-Wyo.) bill, S. 1394, deals with the issues together, and it will be difficult to vote against a bill that seeks to cut down on illegal immigration.

Current immigration law provides 140,000 entry slots per year for skilled foreign workers or investors who promise to create jobs. This quota has not been filled; in fact, there are fewer than 100,000 such permanent visa applicants yearly. Simpson's bill would cut the quota for workers whose skills

are needed by U.S. employers to 90,000about 10,000 few-er than the current number of applicants.

These legal immigrants are the ones who concern some sci-entists and engineers the most. NSF data indicate that immi-grants now compose about 23% of all science and engineering doctorate recipients in the U.S. As of April 1993, foreign-born individuals made up 39% of Ph.D.s in chemical engineering and 26% of Ph.D.s in chemistry. To some, these workers are productive assets to the country. However, others see these scientists as taking desirable jobs from U.S. citizens.

Simpson's bill would limit temporary work visas to three years instead of six and would require employers who hire permanent foreign workers to pay a fee equal to 10% of the worker's first-year salary to fund education and job-training programs for U.S. citizens. In addition, companies in the U.S. that employ foreign workers would have to pay the employee 105% of the prevailing wage. Big businesspar-ticularly the software businesshas cried foul.

Big business is against the bill because of its limits on per-manent and temporary skilled workers. Although Simpson tried to placate its concerns, the business lobby wants pro-

JANUARY 8,1996 C&EN 17

J 1

posed restrictions on employ-ment-based immigration

\ eased. J L & Attempts to split

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GOVERNMENT

rate bills on legal and illegal immigrants failed in the House subcommittee that is also working on immigration legislation. Opponents of the bill will certainly try to split it in the full committee or on the floor. If it does split, an ille-gal immigration bill likely will sail through the House and Senate, and the bill putting more limits on legal immigra-tion could die.

Insiders are not taking any bets that the proponents of immigration limitation will be able to keep the bill together. However, if those who want to limit legal immigration lose this battle, the issue will come up again in 1997. It's not go-ing to go away.

Intellectual property. Supporters of controversial patent legislation, H.R. 359, introduced by California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, want to return patent protection in the U.S. to the way it was before the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT) treaty went into effect.

To comply with the GATT pact and to harmonize U.S. patent law with rules in other countries, the term of a patent in the U.S. now ends 20 years from the earliest effective fil-ing date claimed in the patent application. Prior to June 8, 1995, patents had offered protection for 17 years from the date a patent was granted. This means the patent term is now 20 years minus whatever time is spent in prosecution, which can take more than three years.

Supporters of Rohrabacher's bill say the GATT treaty de-prives them of some of their rightful protection. To them, H.R. 359 is corrective legislation that protects U.S. inventors and small businesses while it foils the multinationals. How-ever, the bill is opposed by many large businesses that have formed a powerful coalition to save patent term reform.

This coalition supports Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead's (R-Calif.) bill, H.R. 1733, which calls for publication of patent applica-tions 18 months after filing. This provision replaces the long-standing secrecy of a patentee's application until it is granted. Opponents of H.R. 1733 say it is like hanging out a neon sign: "Steal our technology." Rohrabacher's bill and Moorhead's opposing bill have, for now, blocked each other's progress.

A number of other patent issues will likely be addressed this year, including H.R. 2235, legislation that would allow a company to keep a technology secret. If at some later time a patent were applied for, a prior user could claim royalty-free license to the invention. Also on the intellectual proper-ty agenda are legislation to privatize the Patent & Trade-mark Office and remove it from congressional oversight, H.R. 1659, and legislation to change the process for reexam-ination of patents by allowing third parties to challenge pat-ents, H.R. 1732.

But nobody can move any of these bills until Rohrabach-er is satisfied in some fashion. Because if anyone tries to move any patent bill, Rohrabacher likely will try attaching his bill to it. "We can't go anywhere. We've got him sty-mied and he's got us blocked, too," says a Washington lob-byist. The next step for H.R. 359 is markup in the intellectu-al property subcommittee, which is expected to take place next monthat the earliest.

OSHA. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration started 1995 as the most vilified of U.S. regulatory agencies. Its record on inspections and fines was criticized as spotty and ca-pricious by House majority whip Tom

deLay (R-Texas), among others. Several congressional hear-ings focused on complaints of small businesses about OSHA actions.

But legislation to reform the Occupational Safety & Health Act of 1970 failed to move in 1995, and its prospects don't look promising this year. Bills now under consideration would move OSHA away from its strict pattern of enforce-ment and punishment and toward more technical support and assistance to companies. These measures have garnered little industry support and are vigorously opposed by labor unions.

Sen. Nancy L. Kassebaum (R-Kan.), chairman of the Sen-ate Labor & Human Resources Committee, has been trying hard to get her own reform bill through. She is retiring at the end of this session after three terms in the Senate. But the bottom line is that even strong Democratic Congresses have tried several times in the past to pass OSHA reform legislation and have failed, even with labor support. A Re-publican bill that is not especially supported by industry and without labor support is likely to go nowhere.

Regulatory reform. Another issue that elicits almost to-tally opposite views from the business and environmental communities is regulatory reform. The regulatory reform bill, H.R. 9, passed by the House requires that for every major regulation, agencies conduct a risk assessment and compare the cost of the regulation to the economy with the likely benefits to human health and the environment. These assessments must be supported by the best available scien-tific data, and the benefits of the rule must justify the costs. Benefits other than those to human health and the environ-ment cannot be considered. Both the risk assessment and the cost-benefit analysis are subject to judicial review.

"The House passed a very strong regulatory reform bill," CMA's Webber says, "but we're very disappointed the Senate didn't come out with something close to that." However, he is optimistic that the Senate will pass something early this year. "Moderate Democrats and key leaders on the Republi-can side are working quietly to get a bill," he says. "But obvi-ously if s going to be a more moderate version than we got in the House." The main element Webber would like to see in such a bill is "reasonably strong judicial review language."

Environmental groups view the regulatory reform bill passed by the House as an effort to roll back environmental protection by undermining a whole series of statutes. "If ev-ery time EPA makes a decision it has to go to court to get it accepted, that will prevent it from doing its job," says Jeffrey Thomas of OMB Watch, a nonprofit organization that follows federal budgetary and regulatory processes. Even though a Senate regulatory reform bill is likely to be more moderate than the House version, Thomas still fears that it will include cost-benefit analysis. This means "clean up the environment only if the price is right," he says.

So much money is being spent by industry in general to push regulatory reform legislation that "we certainly expect to see at least one more attempt to revive it," NRDC's Wet-

stone says. Science and technology policy.

What can be said with certainty about science and technology issues during the second session of the 104th Con-gress is "more of the same." That is, more rancor, confusion, and turmoil

Congressional Outlook is available on the World Wide Web at http:// pubs.acs.org. Click on "What's New" or "Hot Articles."

18 JANUARY 8,1996 C&EN

http://http://pubs.acs.org

inflamed by the political rhetoric of an election yearplus an absence of rea-soned debate about what R&D policies have worked, what haven't, and why.

To put it simply, Democrats and the new breed of Republicans on Capitol Hill have an enormous amount of dislike for each other's values and traditions. In such a cauldron, few bipartisan approaches to policies and priorities for science and technology can be expected. The Republi-cans and their opposite numbers simply do not speak the same language in science and technology. Their analytic approaches are different, their historical frameworks don't match.

Democrats perceive science and technology as an evolving system along a timeline that began with World War II, leading to the present arrangement of academic, industrial, and government cooperation and extending to a future open to continuing refinement. The Republicans do not. They want to break the trajectory that created the present system of gov-ernment and its influence on markets. And science and tech-nology policy, while a system deserving assessment on its own terms, is caught in that warp.

In ordinary times, one might expect during this session of Congress some formal, bipartisan assessments and investi-gations of the implications and impact of both Republican and Democratic policies. But no such undertaking is sched-uled. Such assessements traditionally are within the pur-view of the House Science Committee. Caught up in the budget reconciliation debate, the committee has not yet met to plan any oversight agendas.

Yet, some cool looks at what happened during the first session seem sensible. Although supporting basic science as well as any Democrat, the Republicans, led by House Sci-ence Committee Chairman Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.), op-posed many carefully crafted federal research programs geared to industrial production. They took particular aim at the Commerce Department's Advanced Technology Pro-gram, which far from being solely a handout to compa-niesas the Republicans claimengages them in jointly planning and supporting the projects.

With scant reflection, the Republicans almost gleefully put to death Congress' Office of Technology Assessment. A grand, old-line agencythe Interior Department's Bureau of Mineswent quietly to Valhalla after almost a century of advances in metallurgical research that benefited industry. Intending to create a split between Clinton and his high-tech industry supporters, the Republicans sought to dis-mantle programs that created research partnerships be-tween government laboratories and industry, such as the hundreds of cooperative research and development agree-ments between federal laboratories and industry.

Yet, in apparent contradiction to his own rhetoric, Walker also sponsored a bill spurring development of hydrogen as a fuel. He also had no ideological qualms in supporting the Ad-ministration's program to develop with Detroit a highly effi-cient, nonpolluring, environmentally recyclable car. Another technology program that survived, but at lower funding, is the Defense Department's Technology Reinvestment Project that, with grants, encourages the defense industry to develop

technologies that have both commercial and military applications.

With that as background, following are some of the poli-cy issues to look for during the second session:

The battle for the fiscal 1997 budget. If the Clean Car Initiative could be saved by enlisting executives of the Big Three U.S. auto companies to intervene with individual members of Congress on its behalf, look for similar ap-proaches in other technology assistance programs. Demo-crats are actively creating strategies that will give inexperi-enced Republican legislators direct experience with the types of programs targeted for elimination.

A Robert Walker more determined than ever to leave a permanent legacy in setting a new, long-term agenda for science and technology. Walker, departing the House at the end of this Congress, already has changed the pattern of priority setting on Capitol Hill through his deputy chair-manship of the House Budget Committee. He was able to take the priorities developed in his Science Committee over to the budget-setting process and thus gave the R&D con-tingent in the House more power than it had ever had.

Inconsistencies galore. Just what sort of legacy Walker wants to leave behind is difficult to fathom. Walker sup-ports development programs when he likes the technology. Those programshydrogen, space station, clean carare no different from the Democratic programs he attacks. What he doesn't like, he doesn't support.

A continuing counterattack by the academic communi-ty on research budget cuts. It could be successful and there-by further blur the differences between Republican and Democratic agendas.

Further reductions in the Energy Department's ap-plied research programs and, most certainly, in a politically charged year, an investigation of Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary's jet-set travel style and administrative practices.

Further tedious studies on the future of the national laboratories. No labs will be forced to close down. Pressure will grow for them to narrow their focus, but the labs have become so adept at explaining and justifying the benefits of their work to industry, universities, and congressional dis-tricts that the politicians cannot help but love them.

JANUARY 8,1996 C&EN 19

GOVERNMENT

No Department of Science. The idea remains unpopu-lar. The best Walker has been able to muster is a proposal to combine the National Institute of Standards & Technolo-gy and the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Admin-istration out of the remnants of the Commerce Department. But even that is unlikely if Congress fails to break up the Commerce Department. And it now seems likely that the reports of Commerce's immediate demise, to paraphrase Mark Twain, were greatly exaggerated.

Trade. Despite a lot of talk, little progress was made on several trade issues in the first session of the 104th Con-gress. Some items that will surely arise during the coming year include the president's fast-track negotiating authority, changes in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and economic relations with Japan.

The president's fast-track authority to negotiate trade agreements with other nations expired a year ago, and Con-gress has yet to reauthorize that power. The so-called fast-track authority allows the president to negotiate a treaty and then present it to the Senate for a simple up or down vote. Not allowing Congress to modify a submitted treaty gives the president stronger bargaining power in trade ne-gotiations. But Congress is stumbling over Democratic in-sistence that any trade deals include agreements that na-tions will institute fair labor practices and strict environ-mental regulations as part of the deal. Republicans have balked at this so far, and the result is a stalemate.

One break is on the horizon. A bill has just been introduced to allow fast-track authority for negotiating a treaty with Chile that would allow that South American nation to become part of NAFTA. The problem is convincing Senate Majority Lead-er Dole that now is the time for a new fast-track approval. It is likely the limited authority will be tacked onto another bill early this year, such as one expanding the Caribbean Basin Initiative. The draft bill would permit fast-track procedure to be used only during the first three months of 1997 and would not allow side agreements on labor and environmental issues.

Dole is expected to push for a bill he just introduced that would establish a commission of federal judges to review de-cisions made by the World Trade Organization (WTO) that go against the U.S. The bill has been placed directly on the Sen-ate calendar and can be considered by the full Senate without being approved first by the Senate Finance Committee. If con-sidered, it might be amended to include a second commission that would assess the economic impact on the U.S. of adverse WTO decisions on international trade matters.

Japan will be the focus of much trade negotiation this year as the U.S. attempts to improve its relations with that powerful Pacific nation. Unresolved issues that will be pri-orities in 1996 include renewing the bilateral semiconductor agreement that expires in July, tackling discrimination against use of U.S. film and photographic paper, and ensur-ing that U.S. agricultural products get better access to Japa-nese markets.

During the past year, congressional Republicans haven't shown much interest in working with their Democratic col-leagues to craft legislative compromises, and they aren't like-ly to be any more eager to do so this year. Republicans are enjoying being in charge for the first time in years and doing unto their Democratic colleagues what was done unto them for so many yearsignoring them whenever possible.

Relationships between the White House and Congress are, if anything, worse than those within Congress. Even when the two branches of government agree on a what needs to be done, they can't seem to agree on how to do it. Balancing the federal budget is a case in point.

However, 1996 is an election year and a major one at that. The presidency, all 435 House seats, and 33 Senate seats are up for grabs. How much Congress accomplishes this year and for the most part it will need Clinton's acquiescence if not outright help to enact any lawsdepends in large part on how Congress and Clinton see issues playing with the electorate. Polling results may be a better predictor of the success or failure of a particular piece of legislation this year than its

own merits.

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20 JANUARY 8,1996 C&EN

GOVERNMENTCONGRESSIONAL OUTLOOK '96