WHAT'S NEW (in my opinion), Friday, 4 Feb 1994     Washington, DC

1. WHITE HOUSE CONVENES FORUM ON SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST.  More than
200 leaders of science gathered in Washington this week to discuss a new
framework for sustaining America's scientific preeminence in the post-Cold
War world.  The debate really began four months ago when a Senate
appropriations subcommittee issued a controversial report directing NSF to
emphasize "strategic research" (WN 17 Sep 93).  In a speech that should help
to reduce tensions, strategic research was defined by Sen. Barbara Mikulski
as "investments in science that are focused around important national
goals." She called on NSF to organize around these goals the way NIH is
organized around diseases.  But who will decide what is important?  In what
was surely the most significant talk at the 2-day meeting, Vice President
Albert Gore attributed the remarkable success of American science since
World War II to the policy of awarding research funds on the basis of
scientific merit.  The appropriators are undermining that policy, the Vice
President warned, by continuing to fund "academic pork" projects.

2. AFTERSHOCK FROM THE LOS ANGELES QUAKE REAWAKENS PENNY-KASICH from a
near-death experience.  Congress will pass a $10B emergency appropriation.
It may be decided that acts of God are off budget, but three amendments will
be considered that would take the money from other programs.  Among them is
the Penny-Kasich rescission plan that was defeated last fall.  It includes
research cuts and a cap on indirect cost recovery by universities (WN 12 Nov
93).

3. THE CLINTON BUDGET INCLUDES A "PAUSE" IN OVERHEAD PAYMENTS.  Indirect
cost fever has been described as the herpes of research universities.  You
treat it and it goes away.  Then-- zap! --it's back again.  The new strain
is described as a one-year "pause," not a cut; a university could not be
reimbursed more in FY 95 than in FY 94.  The Clinton budget will be released
on Monday.

4. THIS BUDGET WILL BE ABOUT $30 BILLION LESS THAN LAST YEAR'S.  That means
a sharp reduction in discretionary spending.  NASA will be cut by $250M
(WN 7 Jan 94), but termination of the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (WN 22 Oct
93) accounts for $178M of that.  But with space station costs rising, the
1997 Cassini mission to Saturn is vulnerable.  Of the four planetary
exploration missions announced in 1983, the Comet Rendezvous and Flyby was
cancelled, the Mars Observer is missing, and Cassini is in trouble.  Only
the Magellan radar mapping of Venus has succeeded.

5. DIRECTOR OF OSTP IS NOT ANXIOUS TO HAVE HIS POSITION ELEVATED.  The
"three B"s of congressional science policy, Reps. Boehlert, Boucher and
Brown heard from Jack Gibbons and former Science Advisors Ed David and Guy
Stever on Boucher's bill to elevate the Director of OSTP to the same level
as the Director of OMB  (WN 24 Dec 93).  Boehlert commented that "all it
takes to get a science advisor to support this idea is to have him leave
office."

Robert L. Park  opa@aps.org         The American Physical Society