Friday, April 18, 1997
1. SPACE STATION: CLINTON PRESSURED TO ACT ON RUSSIAN DELAY.
The frustration of Congress over Russia's failure to meet its
commitments to the International Space Station boiled over this
week when the Science Committee took up H.R. 1275, the Civilian
Space Authorization Act of 1997. The committee unanimously
adopted an amendment prohibiting NASA from paying Russia to build
components it had agreed to as its share, and requiring the
President to decide by August 1 whether the U.S. should proceed
with replacements for components that are in the "critical path."
Start of construction is already delayed until at least the end
of 1998 (WN 11 Apr 97). The
amendment would also require NASA to certify that Mir is safe
before another astronaut is sent to hang out in the rickety
facility. Without the income derived from foreign tourists on
Mir, Russia's space program could collapse.
2. LHC: SCIENCE COMMITTEE ATTACHES A FEW STRINGS TO DOE
BILL.
The day before the chair of the House Science
Committee, Jim Sensenbrenner, boarded a plane for a visit to
CERN, the Committee marked up the FY 98 DOE authorization. The
bill contained $35M for U.S. participation in the Large Hadron
Collider, but it was amended to withhold any funding until the
CERN Director reports to Congress on "the impacts of such funding
on the operations and viability of United States high energy and
nuclear facilities."
3. THE FY 98 BUDGET: IS THE 7% SOLUTION BEGINNING TO CATCH
ON?
Congress has still not reached an agreement with the
White House on a plan to balance the budget, but the Science
Committee wasn't waiting. It completed work on ten authorization
bills this week, including NSF, NASA and DOE. The bills call for
FY 98 increases in the range of 7%. Last month when a coalition
of scientific societies called for 7% across-the-board increase
for research (WN 7 Mar 97), many
observers scoffed that such an increase was unrealistic. It's a
treacherous road from authorization in the spring to
appropriation in the fall, but this is a good start.
4. DIGITAL AGENDA: BATTLE SHIFTING FROM TREATY TO
LEGISLATION?
Last week the NRC released its report, "Bits of
Power: Issues in Global Access to Scientific Data" (the "Berry
Report"), portions of which had been circulated in advance to
combat an attempt to impose restrictions by treaty (WN 20 Dec 96). With the treaty now
apparently comatose, word is out that the database industry has
assembled a war chest to push for a legislative remedy. Back
when the database treaty was put on the table, Carlos Morehead
(R-CA)introduced H.R.3531 with similar provisions. His bill went
nowhere, but it's expected to be reintroduced in a more sanitized
form with some sort of fair-use provision. Librarians argue that
legislation should be held to a higher standard: Section 8 of the
U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to grant copyrights
only "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
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