Friday, 18 December 1987 Washington, DC

1. THE FY 88 BUDGET IS NEARING COMPLETION,
with Congress hoping to adjourn by Monday. House/Senate conference committees are redoing a year's worth of budget deliberations to conform to the deficit reduction agreement reached with the White House (WN 4 Dec 87). It's not quite over, but science is not doing well:

THE NSF BUDGET WAS REVISED SHARPLY DOWNWARD by the HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittees on Wednesday. They agreed on a figure of $1.45B for research. That is a 3.3% increase, which is below cost-of-living and a far cry from the increase sought in the plan to double the NSF budget in 5 years (WN 6 Nov 87). Science education is doing better. It will be up about 41% to $139M.

NASA'S REQUEST FOR THE SPACE STATION WAS CUT ALMOST IN HALF by the same subcommittees. The figure agreed to is $425M, which effectively postpones the day of reckoning by one year. NASA has come up with a scaled down version of the station, but everyone except NASA still estimates the total cost at about $25B.

FUNDING FOR THE SSC appears to be headed for the House figure of $25M. That includes nothing for construction and is barely sufficient to keep the design team together.

2 . AN ASSESSMENT OF SCIENTIFIC EXCHANGE AGREEMENTS
with Warsaw Pact nations will be conducted by the General Accounting Office under the terms of an amendment to the Foreign Aid Authorization Act (H.R. 3100). The amendment began life as a Soviet bashing bill, introduced by Rep. Solomon (R-NY) (WN 4 Sep 87), to require government approval of exchanges. It was rewritten as an amendment to the foreign aid bill. Although still dubbed "the Solomon amendment," a compromise was worked out by Rep. Hall (D-TX), Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Cooperation in Science. As passed, it simply calls for the GAO to study:

the efficacy of interagency review of proposed agreements,

the consequences of foreign access to US research,

mandatory debriefing of US participants in exchanges, and

ways to enhance the benefits to the US of exchanges.

3. THE INFAMOUS McCARRAN-WALTER IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION
ACT has at last been revised in an amendment to the FY 88 State Department authorization bill. Passed over Truman's veto in 1952, the height of the McCarthy dementia, McCarran-Walter made the US the only Western democracy to exclude foreign visitors on ideological grounds. Few scientists were actually denied entry, but many refused to apply. Under the amendment, which now goes to the President for signature, aliens may not be denied entry on the basis of their political beliefs. Peter Rodino (D-NJ), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, promises a comprehensive revision of McCarran-Walter early next year.

Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.