An examination of strategic opportunities provided by the conference committee procedure in the U.S. Congress

Deference to committees in Congress has been a much studied phenomena for close to 100 years. This deference can be characterized as the unwillingness of a potentially winning coalition on the House floor to impose its will on a small minority, a standing committee. The congressional scholar is then faced with two problems: observing such deference to committees, and explaining it. Shepsle and Weingast have proposed the existence of an ex-post veto for standing committees as an explanation of committee deference. They claim that as conference reports in the House and Senate are considered under a rule that does not allow amendments, the conferees enjoy agenda-setting power. In this paper I describe a test of such a hypothesis (along with competing hypotheses regarding the effects of the conference procedure). A random-utility model is utilized to estimate legislators' ideal points on appropriations bills from 1973 through 1980. I prove two things: 1) that committee deference can not be said to be a result of the conference procedure; and moreover 2) that committee deference does not appear to exist at all.

The federal photovoltaics commercialization program

The dissertation presents a political and economic history of the federal government's program to commercialize photovoltaic energy for terrestrial use. Chapter 1 is a detailed history of the program. Chapter 2 is a brief review of the Congressional roll call voting literature. Chapter 3 develops PV benefit measures at the state and Congressional district level necessary for an econometric analysis of PV roll call voting. Chapter 4 presents the econometric analysis.

Because PV power was considerably more expensive than conventional power, the program was designed to make PV a significant power source in the long term, emphasizing research and development, although sizeable amounts have been spent for procurement (direct government purchases and indirectly through tax credits). The decentralized R and D program pursued alternative approaches in parallel, with subsequent funding dependent on earlier progress. Funding rose rapidly in the 1970s before shrinking in the 1980s. Tax credits were introduced in 1978, with the last of the credits due to expire this year.

Major issues in the program have been the appropriate magnitude of demonstrations and government procurement, whether decentralized, residential use or centralized utility generation would first be economic, the role of storage in PV, and the role of PV in a utility's generation mix.

Roll call voting on solar energy (all votes analyzed occurred from 1975-1980) was influenced in a cross-sectional sense by all the influences predicted: party and ideology, local economic benefits of the technology, local PV federal spending and manufacturing, and appropriations committee membership. The cross-sectional results for ideology are consistent with the strongly ideological character of solar energy politics and the timing of funding increases and decreases discussed in Chapter 1. Local PV spending and manufacturing was less significant than ideology or the economic benefits of the technology. Because time series analysis of the votes was not possible, it is not possible to test the role of economic benefits to the nation as a whole.

Mechanics of landslides

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether landslides could be predicted for hill slopes of known inclinations from data secured by laboratory tests performed on samples of the ground under consideration. Specifically, the investigation was to show whether a correlation existed between experimentally determined values for friction and cohesion of ground and calculated values based upon the configuration of earth masses that had slid. The ability to determine the stability of slopes from experimental data is of obvious significance.

Time and Fate in Shakespeare’s Othello and Cinthio’s "The Moor of Venice"

[Introduction]Giraldi Cinthio’s short story "The Moor of Venice" forms the basis for William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello. In addition to altering a number of minor aspects of the original tale, Shakespeare also introduces several overarching changes to the narrative by shortening the time frame of the story and excluding fate as a primary driving force of the plot. By diminishing the consequences of time and fate, Shakespeare allows the characters and their inner motivations to be at the forefront of the action.