Decisions about the leadership and composition of Senate committees have been a matter of great interest in this period between the November election and the beginning of the new Congress in January. Accompanying the shift in control of the US Senate from the Republicans to the Democrats, is a major overhaul of the composition of the Senate committees. The new chair of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which has oversight responsibility for the National Archives and the selection of the US Archivist, will be John Glenn (D-OH). The two members of this committee most responsible for the passage in 1984 of the Archives’ independence legislation—Thomas Eagleton (D-MO) and Charles Mathias (R-MD)—are both retiring.
Although committee assignments have not been finalized, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee of the 100th Congress will probably have eight Democrats and six Republicans, in contrast to the seven Republicans and six Democrats on the old committee. They are Glenn (D-OH), Levin (D-MI), Nunn (D-GA), and Chiles (D-FL). Gore (D-TN) plans to leave the committee. Four Democrats being mentioned as probable additions to the committee are Bingham (D-NM), Pryor (D-AR), Sasser (D-TN), and Mitchell (D-ME). Mathias’ retirement reduces the number of remaining Republicans to six and it appears they may all remain on the committee. They are Roth (R-DE), Stevens (R-AK), Durenberger (R-MN), Cochran (R-MS), Cohen (R-ME), and Rudman (R-NH).
The Senate Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government of the Appropriations Committee, which has responsibility for the funding of the National Archives and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, will probably be headed by Senator DeConcini (D-AZ). Leadership of the subcommittee with oversight responsibility for the National Endowment for the Humanities will shift from Stafford (R-VT) to Pell (D-RI). Appropriations for NEH comes under the Subcommittee on Interior, that will be headed by Senator Byrd (D-WV). A number of committees have in recent years dealt with various aspects of the Freedom of Information Act. However, the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, which was chaired by Senator Hatch (R-UT) and will now be led by Senator DeConcini (D-AZ), has had the central role in FOIA legislation in the Senate.
The Commission of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission has recently endorsed a proposal to convene a special winter meeting to consider a “National Policy Statement on Our Documentary Heritage.” Officials of appropriate professional organizations who are invited to the meeting will be asked to formulate a specific plan of action “to preserve for public use the nation’s historical records and to guarantee that the heritage embodied in those records shall be available for future generations.”
Since Congress adjourned considerable reaction has surfaced to a hastily passed item in the omnibus 1987 appropriations legislation. One of the amendments in this legislation established in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the Steamtown National Historic Site, and it authorized $20 million to designate the old Lackawanna Railroad yards in Scranton and a collection of steam locomotives as an official national historic site. Bypassing the National Park Service’s lengthy and careful process of establishing parks and sites, the legislation presents the National Park Service with a questionable task and an enormous expenditure. The Steamtown collection of steam locomotives has been described by some senior transportation curators and historians as being of ambiguous historical value and as an inconsequential collection.
But the price tag, which some think may grow to as much as $70 million, has stirred the most concern, There is something particularly ironic about the fact that $20 million was so easily authorized for this questionable site, when $20 million for the essential work of the state historic preservation program, which coordinates the work of the state and federal historic preservation program, faced such an uphill battle. Many within the historic preservation community, view these developments as further signs of the confusion and lack of federal leadership in setting national priorities for historic preservation.
