Friday, 13 May 1988
1.
NO NEW CONSTRUCTION STARTS ARE IN THE ENERGY APPROPRIATIONS
BILL
before the House. The House Appropriations Committee
adopted an unprecedented "no-new-starts" policy for the FY 89
Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill, which includes
all DOE research programs. Among the projects "zeroed out": The Compact
Ignition Tokamak at Princeton, The Advanced Photon Source
(6 GeV Synchrotron) at Argonne and
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven. In addition,
several university "post-industrial pork" projects
(WN 8 Jan 88) were eliminated
by the policy, which could spell
trouble when the Bill reaches the House floor next week. However,
an absolute ban on new construction, like a freeze, is hard to
attack because it is so mindless. On-going construction projects
were generally reduced below the levels authorized by the
Science, Space and Technology Committee last
week (WN 6 May 88): The
Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley was cut 17%
to $25M (it was a bad day for synchrotrons), The Continuous Electron
Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF)
was reduced a cruel 31% to $44.5M. Nor were the cuts confined
to construction. Materials Sciences
was appropriated only $129.6M, which is $30M below the authorized
level, and Magnetic Fusion Energy was reduced $42M to $343M. The
Committee appropriated $100M for R&D on the Super Collider, which
the SS&T Committee had authorized at $147M. Otherwise, High
Energy and Nuclear physics were appropriated at the full request.
2
. NO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTERS ARE IN THE NSF APPROPRIATION
reported out of the House HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriations
Subcommittee late yesterday. The Committee approved a total FY
89 NSF appropriation of $1.885B, which is an overall increase of
9.8% over this year, down sharply from the authorized increase of
17%. The increase for research is 8.6%. The bill provides no
funds for S&T Centers, but does not prohibit the NSF from
creating Centers out of the research budget--which is already
$55M below the request. At this week's meeting of the National
Science Board, Erich Bloch indicated his intention to create some
Centers this year, but the message from the Subcommittee is to go
slow. The list of potential Centers has been pared from 322 down
to 49. Letters to the 49 advise them to expect a site visit.
3. MARY GOOD WAS ELECTED CHAIR OF THE NATIONAL SCIENCE BOARD.
A chemist who is President of Signal Research Center, Inc., Good
conforms to a pattern of industrial scientists in all major
science posts. She replaces Roland Schmitt, the new President of
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who was at General Electric.
4. SDI DODGED A KINETIC-ENERGY PROJECTILE IN THE SENATE
this week. An amendment by Sen. Johnston (D-LA) to transfer $700M
from SDI to the space shuttle lost by two votes. The Senate
authorization for SDI thus stands at $4.55B
$(WN 6 May 88).
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