J. Bennett Johnston Jr., a Louisiana Democrat and a four-term US senator, helped shape America's energy and science policy in an era of growing concern over nuclear dangers and the country's dependence on foreign oil. He was 92 years old.
His death was confirmed by his son J. Bennett Johnston III.
Johnston served in the Senate from 1972 to 1997, serving as Johnston, who served in the Senate from 1972 to 1997, including his tenure involving the Middle East conflict, including the worst nuclear accident in 1979 and the worst nuclear accident in 1979, the change in nuclear licensing and safety on the nuclear reactor island on three miles islands of Muirmurimua on the worst nuclear accident in 1979.
The target of environmentalist rage, he supported more nuclear power plants, but public safety had limited new construction for decades. However, he won the fight to sharply expand oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the US's leading offshore oil producer, and sponsored laws that would allow coastal states to share federal revenues from offshore drilling.
As chairman or ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee from 1973 to 1996, he was involved in virtually everything in the Senate energy law, from rewriting the nuclear licensing clauses in federal law to developing synthetic fuels and developing oil and natural gas prices. It was a delicate, balanced act for state senators with fiercely competing energy benefits.
In states that are also well known for glamorous politicians like Huey, Earl Long's corrupt rogue, Johnston was a notable exception.
Johnston, athletic man with hair retraction trim – said to be the Senate's most enthusiastic tennis player in his 50s, the enthusiastic apple muncher is a friendly and friendly guy who makes questions and negotiations easier.
His vote was not based on loyalty. A colleague said he switched aspects according to his views on the merits of the proposed law. He advocated higher gas millage standards for automakers, but opposed President Ronald Reagan's strategic defense initiative (a plan to use weapons in space to protect America from nuclear attacks).
On international policy, he often sided with the United Nations and the liberals who supported foreign aid. However, he joined conservatives opposed to abortion and most gun control measures, defending the 1981 bill, limiting buses for public school racial integration to five miles or 15 minutes. The measure died in the House of Representatives.
Johnston led the rejection of Robert H. Bolk as President Reagan's candidate in 1987 in the Senate battle for Supreme Court nominee, but in 1991 he violated the party to help confirm President George HW Bush's candidate, Clarence Thomas.
In 1988, Democrats ruled the Senate and West Virginia's Robert F. Byrd resigned as leader 10 years later, so Johnston and Sen. Daniel K. Innoe of Hawaii competed in the Senate's most powerful post, the majority leader. Both were defeated by Senator George J. Mitchell of Maine.
Johnston's support for higher education has landed $110 million at five national research centers at Louisiana universities. He crusaded for billions of billions for the superconducting supercorrider, a pure research particle accelerator in Texas, looking for fleeting subatomic structures. “It was lynched by something that had no knowledge,” he said in 1993 when the project was cancelled.
“I'm interested in understanding where the universe comes from and where it goes,” Johnston told Physics Today in 1996. (In 2012, scientists announced that they had discovered a new subatomic particle that looked like a Higgs boson.)
John Bennett Johnston Jr., who rarely uses his name, was born on June 10, 1932 in Shreveport, Louisiana to attorneys John Bennett Johnston Sr. and former Wilma Lyon. He graduated from Shreveport School and attended West Point and the US Military Academy at Washington and Lee University before graduating from Louisiana State Law School in 1956.
He married Mary Gunn the same year. They had four children: J. Bennett Johnston III, Hunter Johnston, Mary Johnston Norriss and Sally Roemer.
In the army from 1956 to 1959, he became the first EU of a legion of German judge-advocated generals. After practicing law at Shreveport for several years, he began his political career in 1964 with elections to the Louisiana House of Representatives. In 1968 he won a four-year term in the state Senate.
In Democrat-controlled states, nominations amounted to elections, and in 1971 Johnston ran for governor, but lost a small nomination for Rep. Edwin Edwards. Mr. Edwards later went to prison for eight years due to bribery and terror. In 1972, Johnston challenged the startup of Senator Allen J. Ellender, who had held his seat since 1936 as a protégé of Senator Huey P. Long.
However, Elender passed away during the campaign. Edwards nominated his wife to the seat in the special election, while Johnston won the nomination and general election. He was re-elected in 1978 and again in 1984 for token opposition despite President Reagan's landslide, which hurt other Democrats.
Johnston's final campaign in 1990 was his most difficult time against former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who became a popular state legislator. Even the baroque political standards of Louisiana were strange. A powerful three-term democratic incumbent, shady by political newcomers who did not sponsor a single bill in the Louisiana Legislature.
Duke dominated the campaign by appealing to white responsiveness over positive behaviour and welfare programs, and hints of his racially charged agenda. However, his candidacy and past associations with white hegemony groups have been widely criticized, and Johnston won a fourth term.
When that term ended in January 1997, Johnston, who lived in McLean, Virginia, retired from politics and founded Johnston & Associates.
Johnston's son said he was survived by his wife, his four children and 10 grandchildren.
Yang Zhuang Reports of contributions.
