Friday, 29 November 1991 Washington, DC
1. DEFENSE SPENDING BILL EARMARKS $2M FOR PROSTATE RESEARCH!
The Senate cleared the FY 92 military appropriation bill on
Saturday. It included $139M for 23 academic projects that were
specifically exempted from competition. Considering the fact
that 98% of the senators are males whose average age is 58, the
prostate research program may have been the only one of the 23
that made sense. For example, $25M was earmarked for an Arctic
supercomputer, destined to help University of Alaska researchers
harness the energy of the aurora borealis. You may recall that
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) inserted the supercomputer in last year's
report language (WN 2 Nov 90),
but since it did not appear in the bill itself, DOD was able to
ignore it. This year, Stevens made sure the supercomputer was in
the bill. Because the bill came out of a House/Senate
Conference, it was amendment proof and could only be voted up or
down. But several Senators, led by Sam Nunn of Georgia, felt so
strongly on the pork issue that they opposed the entire bill.
2. BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS TURNS BACK CLOCK--SO DOES
DOE.
Even as the doomsday clock was being turned back to
11:43 p.m., the furtherest ever from midnight, DOE was still
fighting the Cold War. Nuclear disarmament experts at national
labs were ordered not to participate in meetings with Soviet
counterparts on arms limitation and reduction measures. "The
Department does not believe it appropriate to create alternative
channels for these important world peace discussions," according
to DOE's response to a request for clarification. Laboratory
scientists who attended despite the order were disciplined, even
though they took leave and traveled to the unclassified meetings
at their own expense. The dispute comes just as the University
of California is engaged in renegotiation of its contract to
manage Livermore and Los Alamos, a contract that was already
unpopular with the faculty. University management of the labs is
often justified on the grounds that the University will defend
scientific freedom.
3. TOWNES TASK FORCE ON ENERGY RESEARCH PRIORITIES IS
RECONVENED.
This is an update on the exciting progress being made in priority
setting in the DOE. It began, you will recall, back in September.
The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) put together a Task
Force on Energy Research Priorities (TFERP) that considered what
to do in a world of flat budgets--except for the SSC which is off
limits. TFERP decided it needed help from the High-Energy Physics
Advisory Panel (HEPAP) and the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee
(NSAC). But HEPAP and NSAC were told to worry about budgets that
go down 10%. This week, TFERP was reconvened. It didn't change
its report much, but decided a subpanel (subFERP) would be needed
to make a report in April. (Are you getting all this?) SubFERP
will broaden the priority scope to include Basic Energy Sciences
(BES). Meanwhile, DOE submitted its initial FY 93 budget request
to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on 15 Oct; neither
the details of the request nor OMB's response to it are public.
|
