Books by United States House of Representatives

Nearly 80 years ago, Aldous Huxley wrote his literary masterpiece Brave New World. In that book he posited a future where genetic engineering is commonplace and human beings, aided by cloning, are mass produced. Controllers and predestinators replaced mothers and fathers. The words themselves considered smut. As the new authors of human life in an uncompromising search for human happiness and stability, the possibility of human individuality had been entirely jettisoned. For most of its 80 years, Brave New World could be seen as a disturbing work of science fiction. That is no longer the case. The possible cloning of human beings is now relegated to the world -- not relegated to the world of fiction. The question we must now ask is this: what should we do with this science? Several scientists claim that they are poised to take the fateful next step and actually produce a human clone. We in this subcommittee will focus not only on the scientific, but on the moral and ethical questions raised by the astonishing possibility that an exact copy of a human being might be cloned in the near future. Although federally funded human cloning research is prohibited, such privately funded research is not. In fact, no definitive Federal statute governs privately funded human cloning experiments. Experimentation in science has outpaced the law on the underlying issues raised by human cloning. The FDA has asserted that it has jurisdiction over human cloning, based on the Public Health Service Act and the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Is this a sufficient safeguard? Although there is no Federal ban on human cloning, a number of states, 26 other countries and the United Nations have seen the need to enact some form of ban on human cloning. But to craft a meaningful and reasonable statute that is both sound in its scienceand consistent with human dignity, the Congress needs to ask the hard questions posed by human cloning research. This committee has a responsibility to ask these difficult questions because we are dealing with the most profound of human responsibilities, the future of our species. The witnesses we have assembled represent a broad cross section of opinions and expertise on these complex issues. We will hear from experts in animal cloning research and bioethics, the FDAand the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, among others. We will also hear from controversial witnesses. We hope to learn from their testimony whether the projects they envision are credible scientifically. Other esteemed bodies can hold meetings and write reports and issue voluntary guidelines, but only the Congress can write the laws for our nation.

Open and accountable government is one of the bedrock principles of our democracy. Yet virtually since inauguration day, questions have been raised about the Bush Administration's commitment to this principle. News articles and reports by independent groups over the last four years have identified a growing series of instances where the Administration has sought to operate without public or congressional scrutiny. At the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, this report is a comprehensive examination of secrecy in the Bush Administration. It analyzes how the Administration has implemented each of our nation's major open government laws. The report finds that there has been a consistent pattern in the Administration's actions: laws that are designed to promote public access to information have been undermined, while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or to operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded. The cumulative result is an unprecedented assault on the principle of open government. The Administration has supported amendments to open government laws to create new categories of protected information that can be withheld from the public. President Bush has issued an executive order sharply restricting the public release of the papers of past presidents. The Administration has expanded the authority to classify documents and dramatically increased the number of documents classified. It has used the USA Patriot Act and novel legal theories to justify secret investigations, detentions, and trials. And the Administration has engaged in litigation to contest Congress' right to information. The records at issue have covered a vast array of topics, ranging from simple census data and routine agency correspondence to presidential and vice presidential records. Among the documents that the Administration has refused to release to the public and members of Congress are (1) the contacts between energy companies and the Vice President's energy task force, (2) the communications between the Defense Department and the Vice President's office regarding contracts awarded to Halliburton, (3) documents describing the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib, (4) memoranda revealing what the White House knew about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and (5) the cost estimates of the Medicare prescription drug legislation withheld from Congress. There are three main categories of federal open government laws: (1) laws that provide public access to federal records; (2) laws that allow the government to restrict public access to federal information; and (3) laws that provide for congressional access to federal records. In each area, the Bush Administration has acted to restrict the amount of government information that is available.