Friday, 22 May 1992 Washington, DC
1. JOBS TAKE PRECEDENCE AS CONGRESS PASSES $8.2B RESCISSION
BILL.
The bill cut $308M more than the President asked for, but the
"peace dividend" remained elusive as Congress saved the Seawolf
and made only token cuts in the B-2 and SDI. To save jobs, an-
other Seawolf submarine will roam the oceans uncontested; more
not-so-stealthy B-2 bombers will sit on runways because they are
too expensive to commit in non-nuclear wars; ballistic missile
defenses in North Dakota will presumably guard against Scud
attacks from Canada. But it was also pay-back time. The bill
takes $3.35M back from the Fermilab upgrade and $1.25M from SETI.
The two projects come up every time there are cuts to be made.
2. ABOUT THAT NSF GRANT YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD! CONGRESS WANTS
$2M
back from NSF. It's not a lot of money, but it could
come from grants that have already been awarded. The Senate
rescission had specified 31 NSF grants to be cancelled,
apparently selected solely on the basis of titles that sounded
silly to Senator Byrd(WN 8 May 92). Most
of the 31 were in the social sciences; none were in physics. In a
letter to House/Senate conferees, APS Vice-President Burton
Richter asked that, if cuts had to be made to already approved
grants, agencies "should be given a target and allowed to choose
where to apply the reductions to do the least damage to its
scientific program." That would avoid the precedent of Congress
second-guessing peer review decisions. The bill Congress passed
yesterday does put the axe in NSF's hands, but the accompanying
report recommends cancellation of the 31 grants by name, adding
that "the conferees do not believe that these 31 awards represent
prudent use of taxpayer funds, particularly when the Foundation
expects to turn down nearly 38,000 grant proposals in fiscal year
92 due to insufficient appropriations." To empha-size their
displeasure, the $2M they cut from NSF is the total cost of the
31 awards. But the grantees have already obligated $754M of
that. So even if it now eliminates the 31 grants, NSF must still
find another $754K. The reaction of NSF Director Walter Massey
was remarkably subdued. He stated only that NSF "will always
strive to maintain this flexibility [to incorporate outside
opinions in spending decisions] and the public's confi-dence."
The NSF rescission reduces the FY 92 deficit by .0005%.
3. GOLDIN HAS NASA OFFICIALS CHANTING "FASTER! CHEAPER!
BETTER!"
In a report delivered to the Senate last week, NASA proclaimed a
shift in emphasis towards smaller, lower cost and more frequent
planetary missions. For two decades space science has suffered
from NASA's obsession with gigantism. The new, less expensive
missions will be designed to move from concept to flight in three
years, which NASA believes will revitalize academic interest in
planetary science. Meanwhile, however, there was a reminder of
the old NASA. NASA's Inspector General is investigating a $30M
shuttle toilet that was supposed to cost $3M. According to the
contractor, the toilet cost went up when NASA added a window!
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