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The '''Gore–Chernomyrdin Commission''', or U.S.–Russian Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation, was a United States and Russian Joint Commission developed to increase cooperation between the two countries in several different areas.<ref name="Commission1996">1996. "U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation (Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission)." Department of State of the United States of America. Retrieved October 19, 2011.</ref> The Commission was developed by the United States’ President [[Bill Clinton]] and Russian President [[Boris Yeltsin]] at a summit in [[Vancouver]] in April 1993.<ref name="Commission1996"/> [[Al Gore]], the United States Vice President, and [[Viktor Chernomyrdin]], the Russian Prime Minister, were appointed as co-chairmen and the committee derives its name from those two individuals.<ref name="Commission1996"/><ref name="Barry2010">Barry, Ellen and Michael Schwirtz. 2010. "Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russian Ex- Premier, Dies at 72." New York Times, November 3. Retrieved October 19, 2011.</ref> Before his appointment to the Commission, Chernomyrdin oversaw the Soviet national oil industry as minister from 1985–1989.<ref name="Barry2010"/> After the fall of the Soviet Union, Chernomyrdin organized the Soviet oil industry into the [[Gazprom]] corporation.<ref name="Barry2010"/>

==Aims==
The Gore–Chernomyrdin Commission was formed in order to promote cooperation between Russia and the United States on issues of space exploration, energy, trade and business development, defense conversion, science and technology, health, agriculture, and environment.<ref name="Commission1996"/>

===Space Exploration===
The U.S. and Russia agreed to cooperate in terms of space exploration by working more as a team, rather than against one another.<ref name="Commission1996"/> The U.S. and Russia agreed on several occasions to attempt to build one space station together, the [[International Space Station]], to further improve space shuttle designs, and cooperative U.S. and Russian space technology research. The leaders of the space cooperation agreements of the Gore–Chernomyrdin Commission included NASA Administrator [[Daniel Goldin]] and General Director of the Russian Space Agency [[Yuri Koptev]].<ref name="Commission1996"/>

===Energy===
The energy agreements and policies of the Gore–Chernomyrdin Commission were facilitated by Secretary of Energy [[Hazel O'Leary]] and Minister of Fuel and Energy [[Yuri Shafranik]].<ref name="Commission1996"/>  These agreements included increasing the safety of nuclear reactors, increasing the efficiency and productivity of Russian natural gas extraction, and also ties into the environmental policies on the Commission which included reducing pollution of the environment.<ref name="Commission1996"/> The Commission also prohibited the use of plutonium in nuclear weapons.<ref name="Commission1996"/> The environmental policies were led by [[Environmental Protection Agency]] Administrator [[Carol Browner]] and [[Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (Russia)|Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources]] [[Viktor Danilov-Danilyan]].<ref name="Commission1996"/>

===Trade and Business===
The United States and Russian trade and business agreements included methods to increase the financial strength of both countries.<ref name="Commission1996"/> The U.S. hoped to increase investment in the Russian economy, while also hoping to open U.S. businesses in Russia.<ref name="Commission1996"/> The two countries also attempted to create a private Russian gasoline corporation, in hopes of determining the most effective conditions for prosperity of such a company.<ref name="Commission1996"/> The trade and business policies were aided by [[Secretary of Commerce]] [[Ron Brown]] and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Economic Relations [[Oleg Davydov]].<ref name="Commission1996"/>

===Defense Conversion===
The defense conversion policies were led by [[United States Secretary of Defense|Secretary of Defense]] [[William J. Perry]], First Deputy Minister of Defense, [[Andrei Kokoshin]], and First Deputy Minister of the Economy, [[Valeriy Makhailov]].<ref name="Commission1996"/> These policies attempted to convert military production away from the government to civilian production. These efforts were large financial endeavors.<ref name="Commission1996"/>

===Science and Technology===
The sector of science and technology, run by OSTP Director [[Jack Gibbons]] and Minister of Science [[Boris G. Saltykov]], included improvements of highways systems and other transportation issues, biological research, geological research, engineering, and oil and natural gas research.<ref name="Commission1996"/> The health policies of the Commission included improvement of health education and treatments, as well as health policies and reforms, and were led by Secretary of Health [[Donna Shalala]] and Minister of Health and Medical Industry [[Eduard Nechayev]].<ref name="Commission1996"/>

===Agribusiness===
One of the later forming committees was that of Agribusiness. The Agribusiness committee included improvement of the agriculture industry in terms of production and trade.<ref name="Commission1996"/> This committee was led by [[Secretary of Agriculture]] [[Dan Glickman]] and Deputy Prime Minister [[Aleksandr Zaveryukha]].<ref name="Commission1996"/>

==Abuses of the Commission==
In the early 1990s, the United States government gave responsibility to the [[Harvard Institute for International Development]] to help the [[Russia]]n government transition from a public economy to a private economy.<ref name="Shadow Elite">Wedel, Janine R. 2009. Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market. New York, NY: Basic Books Group.</ref> The Harvard Project was led by [[Andrei Shleifer]] and [[Jonathon Hays]].<ref name="Shadow Elite"/> [[Anatoly Chubais]], a Russian economist, politician, and businessman represented Russia in privatization effort.<ref name="Shadow Elite"/> This group of individuals had a great deal of power and influence over the privatization process. As part of their privatization strategy, Chubais, Shleifer, and Hays (along with several others) used their insider access to different types of information to limit that information to their private network, enriching themselves and many others in the process (see [[Russian oligarchs]]).<ref name="Shadow Elite"/> One of the committees on which the members of this small group sat was the Gore–Chernomyrdin Commission, which Janine Wedel describes as follows
:"Members of the intertwined Chubais–Harvard network appointed each other to visible binational posts in economic, energy, and high tech areas. They arranged for each other to be well represented on the high-level Gore–Chernomyrdin Commission ... which helped to facilitate cooperation on U.S.–Russian oil deals and the Mir Space Station, among other issues."<ref name="Shadow Elite"/>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Russia–United States relations}}
{{Politics of outer space}}

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[[Category:1993 in Russia]]
[[Category:1993 in the United States]]
[[Category:Russia–United States relations]]
[[Category:Presidency of Bill Clinton]]
[[Category:Boris Yeltsin]]