Friday, 10 July 1992 Washington, DC

1. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE PROBES PEER REVIEW "VULNERABILITY."
Questionnaires from the investigative arm of Congress have been sent to an unknown number of NSF proposal reviewers, asking them how well they know the authors of SPECIFIC proposals they have reviewed. The survey, which is generating anxiety attacks among NSF officials as well as recipients of the questionnaires, was undertaken at the request of Senator John Glenn (D-OH), chair of the Government Affairs Committee. It was prompted by the case of Jon Kalb. In 1976, NSF denied Kalb funds for anthropology field research in Africa on the advice of a peer review panel--after the panel had been informed by an NSF Program Director of rumors that Kalb was involved with the CIA. The source of the rumors was apparently a Kalb competitor. Kalb's efforts to find out what had happened were thwarted by an illegal "dual" filing system NSF used to hide documents from Freedom of Information requests. As a result of the Kalb case, NSF changed a number of its rules, but the GAO study seeks to determine how vulnerable the peer review system is to other abuses, such as cronyism. The questions, how-ever, are loaded, e.g., "Is the focus of your research so similar that some scholars would believe you and the PI are competitors?" My favorite: "Has the PI ever reviewed one of your proposals? Yes or no?" If you check either box, you are guilty of collusion.

2. THE SSC: IT'S NOT OVER TILL IT'S OVER--NOT EVEN IN THE HOUSE.
In discussing the House vote to kill the Supercollider, WHAT'S NEW (WN 19 Jun 92) speculated that even if the Senate were to fully restore the SSC, funding would be cut in half in conference with the House, which approved zip for the big machine. But under the rules, if the Senate bill includes funds for a program that is not in the House bill at all, the House must vote on how to instruct its conferees. So, by zeroing the SSC, rather than just slashing it, the House left the door ajar for reconsideration. But will the Senate restore it? Some DOE officials are privately saying they have the votes right now, but Sen. Johnston (D-LA) is not so sanguine. He is reportedly delaying the vote as long as possible to give supporters a chance to do their thing. But in this election year, it won't be delayed beyond the end of July.

3. GOLDIN WARNS THAT SPACE STATION FUNDING WON'T GO TO SCIENCE,
if the orbiting budget eater is killed. In fact, few opponents of the station are so naive as to expect funds to flow from the station to science; what they seek to staunch is the flow in the other direction. Goldin's comments came at a meeting of the House Democratic Budget Study Group on Wednesday. Rep. Howard Wolpe (D-MI) reminded the group that inside NASA, EOS, AXAF and Cassini are already suffering because of the station, while NSF and EPA are suffering outside. To help science, he said, cut the space "albatross." Quoting the figure of $100K/yr arrived at by WHAT'S NEW for the average cost of space station jobs, he noted that the station is not even an efficient jobs program.



Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.