Friday, 21 June 96 Washington, DC
1. HELIUM: SENATE COMMITTEE AMENDS THE HELIUM PRIVATIZATION ACT.
By unanimous consent, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee inserted a key change into H.R. 3008.
Before the national helium reserve can be sold, the amendment calls for the National Academy of Sciences to examine
the impact of the sale on American science and technology.
Based on the Academy's findings, the Interior Secretary would propose
legislation "to avoid adverse effects." It's not clear when or if the
bill will reach the Senate floor, and the House would have to
agree to any changes. Last November the APS Council called for
measures to "conserve and enhance the nation's helium reserves"
(WN 8 Dec 95).
The reserve seemed doomed when the House passed H.R. 3008 by 411-10
(WN 3 May 96); physicists then waged an
educational campaign ( WN 24 May 96).
2. GLOBAL WARMING? IT'S THE SCIENTIFIC RHETORIC THAT'S HEATING UP
2. GLOBAL WARMING? IT'S THE SCIENTIFIC RHETORIC THAT'S HEATING UP
When the UN's International Panel on Climate Change released its
report, agreed to last November in Madrid, Fred Seitz fired back a
response on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal.
Seitz, a distinguished physicist who served as president of the
American Physical Society (1961), charged that the IPCC report was
altered to play down uncertainties AFTER it was approved by the panel.
"I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer review process," Seitz puffed.
Nonsense, replied panel members, Seitz had merely seen a draft; there were no changes at all in the conclusions, and the editorial changes were called for by the IPCC.
Some environmentalists suspected that the op-ed was part of a
campaign by the Global Climate Coalition, an industry group.
But Seitz, who runs the conservative George C. Marshal Institute,
a Washington think tank, says the Institute gets no funding from
industry. According to its Washington office, the Institute is
funded by five foundations: Bradley, Donner, Bodman, Scaife and Olin.
The Institute has argued that human activity doesn't cause
global warming ( WN 29 Dec 89).
Before that, it was known for its unqualified support of the
Star Wars fantasies of Ronald Reagan.
3. BUDGET: HOUSE TARGETS DOE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS.
The House Report on the FY 97 Budget Resolution calls for
terminating the Department of Energy education program, which for
thirty years has supported undergraduate internships, graduate
students, and sabbatical programs for faculty at National Labs.
It's not clear what the Appropriations Committee will do;
markup won't occur until mid-July. Last year, the Senate came
to the rescue.
4. SQUIRRELS: COURT ALLOWS CONSTRUCTION OF TELESCOPE TO RESUME.
Environmentalists lost a ten-year fight to stop the University of
Arizona from building the Binocular Telescope on Mt. Graham,
the sole habitat of a cute red squirrel. Actually, with squirrels as
with people, astronomy may help the libido. After a year of
construction, the population of Mt. Graham red squirrels doubled.
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