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. The Commission was developed by the United States’ President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin at a summit in Vancouver in April 1993. 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. Before his appointment to the Commission, Chernomyrdin oversaw the Soviet national oil industry as minister from 1985–1989. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Chernomyrdin organized the Soviet oil industry into t