Friday, 22 February 1991 Washington, DC
1. BROMLEY TAKES THE HEAT FOR BUSH'S "NATIONAL ENERGY
STRATEGY.
" An hour before the President officially unveiled
his plan to deal with the nation's growing dependence on imported
fossil fuels, his Science Advisor was given a taste of
Congressional reaction. Allan Bromley was the sole witness at the
opening hearing of the House Science, Space and Technology
Committee on the President's FY 92 budget request. The committee
chair, Rep. George Brown (D-CA), opened the hearing by praising
Bromley's written statement, but from there on it was downhill.
Rep. James Scheuer (D-NY) commented on the irony of an energy
policy that fails to make full use of science and technology to
reduce dependence on oil while a half million men are at at risk
in a war to protect access to foreign sources. But, the energy
strategy was in the works before Allan Bromley was even
nominated. The strategy was produced by DOE after months of
study and public hearings held across the country--and then
trashed by the White House economic purists. Fearing
conservation would further damage the economy, Darman, Sununu and
Boskin changed the emphasis to production.
2. CONGRESS EARMARKED $427M FOR UNIVERSITY SCIENCE IN FY
1991,
according to Bromley, who promised to work with
Congress on ways to reduce the perceived need for earmarking. He
was challenged by Rep. Rhodes (R-AZ) who asked, "Isn't
encouraging excellence an appropriate role for government?"
Bromley responded by calling attention to NSF's Experimental
Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), which assists
states that have been relatively less competitive in obtaining
Federal R&D support. He could have said that pork-barrel science
has little to do with excellence; the billions of dollars spent
on pet projects of powerful members of Congress in recent years
have yielded insignificant scientific returns. Besides, most of
the pork goes to the already fat. To avoid being identified,
recipients have taken to wearing masks. Last year, for example,
$24M went to Competitive Research Inc, a psuedonym for Lehigh
University (you can't help but admire their choice of names).
The entire FY 91 EPSCoR program is only $11M. The request for FY
92 is $15M, but the increase is intended to stimulate science and
engineering education as well as research.
3. THE "INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY" SHOWS A BIG INCREASE IN FY
92.
The President's budget proposes $638M for the High
Performance Computing and Communications program, an increase of
$149M, or 30%. This initiative was generated by the Federal
Coordinating Council on Science and Engineering Technology
(FCCSET, which is pronounced "fix it") and involves eight
Federal agencies. The project has been pushed both by Bromley
and Sen. Gore (D-TN), whose father launched the superhighway
program. The High Perform-ance Computing program includes the
National Research and Educa-tion Network which will connect the
Nation's educational and research organizations to Federal
libraries, databases, super-computers and such facilities as
telescopes and accelerators.
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