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).



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.