Irish plant will be in Antrim. It will be on the site of a British Enkalon textile fiber plant closed in 1982 when Europe's 10 largest fiber pro ducers reached an agreement to cut their capacities. The new plant will be phased into production begin ning in mid-1992. Eastman currently has 160 million lb of polyester staple fiber capacity in the U.S. At one time the fiber producer had domestic capacity of close to 700 million lb of staple fiber and 50 million lb of filament yarn. Since 1987, it has reduced its textile fiber capacity and shifted polymer capacity to the growing polyethyl ene terephthalate bottle polymer market. Texmaco, a vertically inte grated textile manufacturer with 15,000 employees, operates a polyes ter filament yarn plant in West Java with machinery it bought from East man in 1988. Primary markets for fiber from the new capacity will be in Europe, Africa, and the Far East. Although Eastman has no plans to market the output in the U.S., it does hold the rights to do so. Marc Reisch
Bush vetoes chemical arms sanctions bill President Bush has vetoed a bill that would have imposed mandatory sanctions against countries that use chemical or biological weapons and against companies that aid in the proliferation of such weapons. He says the bill "would severely con strain Presidential authority in car rying out foreign policy." Bush argues that the flaw with the bill was not in its aims but in the "rigid way" in which the objectives would be achieved. He takes issue with the bill's mandatory and uni lateral requirements, which he says "would harm U.S. economic inter ests and provoke friendly countries who are essential to our efforts to re sist Iraqi aggression." In general terms, the bill Bush ve toed required that he impose oneyear trade sanctions against any company that aided an effort to ac quire, produce, or use chemical or biological weapons. Additionally,
the bill required him to impose an array of economic and diplomatic sanctions against countries that he certified had used or were preparing to use such weapons. Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D.-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Af fairs Committee, says Bush betrayed "his own policies and leadership on the chemical w e a p o n s issue by pocket vetoing this . . . legislation." (With Congress not in session, the President vetoed the bill simply by not signing it.) "In view of the Iraqi chemical weapons threat, this is just the time when the U.S. must . . . set an example for others regarding ex port controls and sanctions against uses of chemical weapons," Fascell adds. In lieu of signing the bill, the "Omnibus Export Amendments Act of 1990," Bush has issued executive order 12735, which he says covers many of the same objectives. Mi chael P. Walls, assistant general counsel for the Chemical Manufac turers Association, says his initial impression "is that the provisions of the executive order track the intent of the House legislation." (House and Senate bills were melded into a conference bill that became Title IV, Chemical & Biological Warfare Pro liferation, of the omnibus bill.) Chemical warfare expert Elisa D. Harris of the Brookings Institution says, "Congress will read the execu tive order very carefully and keep a
Bush: foreign policy constraint
close eye on how the Administra tion implements it." A Congression al staffer points out that "the over riding regime of the Senate bill— mandatory, immediate sanctions—is not in the executive order." And he expects that the order "will not meet Congress' criteria and that there will be an inclination to move again on sanctions legislation." Under the executive order, the sanctions would not be mandatory but at the President's discretion. The order also directs the secretaries of State and Commerce to use existing legal authority to control exports that would assist in the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons. And the order directs the Secretary of State to pursue an early comple tion to a global treaty b a n n i n g chemical weapons. Lois Ember
Biogen gets European α-interferon patent After a checkered history, Biogen's patent for «-interferons has received complete approval by the European Patent Office. The patent gives the Cambridge, Mass.-based biotechnol ogy company and its licensee, Scher ing-Plough, the right to exclude oth ers from making and selling geneti cally engineered α-interferons— used in treating a number of cancers and viral conditions—in countries following the European patent con vention. The EPO decision last week was the final step in a lengthy appeal process. Biogen was awarded a Euro pean patent for «-interferons in Au gust 1984. A year later, several com panies filed an opposition to Bio gen's patent with EPO. In 1987, the agency's Opposition Division issued a decision that it would revoke Bio gen's patent, stating that the scope of the patent claims were too broad. Biogen and Schering-Plough ap pealed. In February 1989, EPO's Technical Board of Appeals decided to rein state the patent, finding the claims for processes and intermediates for producing recombinant «-interfer ons patentable. But, it remanded a single remaining issue to its OpposiNovember 26, 1990 C&EN 7
