WHAT'S NEW, Friday, 10 March 1989 Washington, DC
1.
THE DEBATE OVER PRIORITIES AMONG COMPETING SCIENCE PROJECTS
moved to the Senate Budget Committee yesterday. The first shot
was fired by Robert Rosenzweig, the President of the Association
of American Universities, who suggested that the recent system of
identifying and closing unneeded military bases be applied to
national laboratories. "Many of them are doing first-class work
by any standard," he said "but others are not." Senator Domenici
(R-NM), in whose state two national laboratories make up a large
fraction the economy, shot back that perhaps the AAU should "set
up a commission to decide which universities are duplicitous and
close them." The witnesses, which included Frank Press, President
of the National Academy of Sciences, and Clyde Prestowitz of the
Carnegie Endowment, all stressed the disproportionate emphasis on
Defense R&D and the need for a strong Science Advisor. Domenici
commented that "the emphasis on a Science Advisor cries out...we
can do a service by urging the President to get the Science
Advisor into office quickly." Still no word from the White House.
2
. FOREIGN PARTICIPATION IN THE SUPER COLLIDER
was the subject of
hearings this week before the House Subcommittee on International
Scientific Cooperation, chaired by Texas Democrat Ralph Hall. The
Department of Energy expects one third of the total cost of the
SSC will come from non-federal sources--mostly from the state of
Texas, which has pledged $1B. Potential foreign participants are
expected to make "in-kind" contributions rather than cash, but
Texas isn't putting up a billion dollars to create jobs in India
and Korea (Texans call the SSC the "Super Provider"). To make
sure things don't get out of hand, Hall introduced H.R. 1195,
"the SSC Non-Federal Contribution Act," to cap the foreign share
at 30% of the total. Not to worry! According to the testimony of
James Decker, Deputy Director of Energy Research at DOE, the only
foreign commitment with a number attached is from India, which
promises a $50M in-kind contribution. Other countries await an
unequivocal decision from Congress to construct, while Congress
is reluctant to proceed without firm foreign commitments. The
Hall bill also limits eligibility for SSC contracts to firms in
the US or in countries that are substantial contributors to the
project, and prohibits more than 50% of any major component from
being manufactured in a foreign country. Similar restrictions
were contained in last year's Department of Energy Authorization.
3. RESEARCH FOR THE SSC HAS ALREADY YIELDED HIGH-TECH SPINOFFS,
and they haven't even broken ground yet! Testifying before the
same subcommittee, Thomas Luce, Chairman of the Texas National
Research Laboratory Commission, reported that the spin-offs to
date include: better magnets for magnetic resonance imaging in
medical diagnostics, more efficient tunneling techniques, a
light-weight microwave amplifier for satellite communications, a
superconducting energy storage coil for off-peak periods of power
plants, and advances in super computer hardware and software.
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