WHAT'S NEW, Friday, 8 December 1989 Washington, DC
1.
THE NSF HAS NOT DISCLOSED HOW THE SEQUESTRATION CUTS
will be distributed among its programs. The budget reconciliation bill
(WN 24 Nov 89) left
sequestration in effect for a total of four
months. That whittles the Research portion of the NSF budget down
to a 5% increase, barely inflation. That's not the bad news. To
protect "high-priority" programs, cuts will not be distributed
evenly. The Math and Physical Sciences Directorate will get only
about 3%, the Physics Division even less. Congress must approve
significant changes in the distribution, but if they don't act in
30 days, it constitutes approval. With Congress in recess until
23 Jan, NSF has two weeks to submit the changes with impunity.
2
. JOHN H. MOORE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NSF, IS LEAVING ON 1 JAN 89
to become director of the George Mason University International
Institute. Moore, an economist on leave of absence from the
Hoover Institution at Stanford, was appointed to NSF in 1985 by
President Reagan. Who will act in his place is not known.
3. THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SHOULD PHASE OUT OF WEAPONS LABS
according to a faculty committee. The eight member committee was
charged by the Academic Council with evaluating the University's
role in managing Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National
Laboratories. Specifically they were asked to address freedom of
expression and inquiry at the labs, the participation of faculty
and students in the labs, and the benefits to the labs of their
ties to the University. Six members of the faculty committee
favored an outright contractural break with the labs. The other
two members favored creation of a separate corporate body within
the University to operate the labs. Previous committees, in 70
and 78, had called for significant changes in oversight of the
labs. Their recommendations had little effect, but a series of
incidents in recent years have reflected badly on the University,
as well as on the two laboratories. A 1987 GAO report concluded
that laboratory personnel were being improperly used to lobby
against a lower nuclear test ban threshold. It was also learned
that Edward Teller and Lowell Wood had misrepresented progress on
the x-ray laser to high government officials. When he tried to
set the record straight, Roy Woodruff, an Associate Director, was
disciplined. In 1988, with the x-ray laser by now in oblivion,
Wood and Teller were back in Washington selling another mythical
weapon, Brilliant Pebbles. Also in 1988, Operation Snowstorm, an
investigation into drug use at LLNL, was prematurely terminated;
whereupon the investigation became known as "Operation Snowjob."
4. SERIOUS SECURITY LAPSES AT LAWRENCE LIVERMORE BECAME PUBLIC
just this week, with the declassification of a July hearing
before a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The Director of Security Evaluations of the DOE testified that
inspectors found quantities of Pu-239 in excess of a critical
mass left unattended in unalarmed rooms during offshift hours.
|
