CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING
NEWS VOLUME
38,
NUMBER
28
T h e Chemical W o r l d T h i s W e e k
JULY 11, 1960
Chemical Bills Await Congress's Return Passed by House
;
Passed by Senate
In Senate-House Conference
|
Sent to President
Air Pollution in committee
Coal Research Color Additives Farm Crop Research Helium Conservation International Health Research Labels for Hazardous Chemicals
+ + + + + in committee
Saline Water Conversion Program
in committee
Congressmen headed for home and the conventions early last week, but in the week before they recessed they managed to push through several bills affecting the chemical industry. Among them: a color additives, a coal research, and a hazardous substances labeling bill. Although Congress did speed up legislative action the week before recessing, it left virtually untouched a raft of major legislation. The four biggest issues that will face Congress when it returns to Washington next month are medical care for the aged, school construction, housing, and minimum wages. Since all four of these measures are important political campaign issues, the pre-election session
+ +
4-
Oceanography Research
School Construction
1
+
+ +
+
approved by committee
+ + + +
+
of Congress probably won't find much time to act on other legislation. As expected, the color additives bill that Congress finally passed contains the controversial Delaney anticancer clause and authorizes the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to set safety tolerances on all color additives. The anticancer clause, identical to the anticancer clause in the food additives amendment, prohibits the use of any color additive which induces cancer in men or test animals. However, unlike the food additives amendment, the color bill provides for a panel of scientists to give advice on additive problems arising from the cancer clause. Anyone likely to be adversely affected by a ruling can
+ + + ask H E W panel.
to appoint
an
advisory
Warning Labels. A bill to control labels on hazardous household chemicals passed Congress with little difficulty. The new label bill will update the Federal Caustic Poison Act of 1927 by requiring all types of hazardous household chemicals to carry warning labels. The present Federal Caustic Poison Act covers only about a dozen specific household chemicals that were in use in 1927. The new labeling bill won't apply to foods, drugs, and cosmetics subject to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, or to products subject to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. Enforcement of the JULY
11, 1960
C&EN
19
industry-backed bill will start six months from now if the President signs it as expected. Coal Research. A coal research bill was also hurried through Congress the week before it recessed. The measure establishes a permanent $2 million-a-year research program aimed at finding new mining techniques and new uses for coal. It requires that a separate coal research office be set up within the Interior Department. President Eisenhower had vetoed the first session's coal research bill because the program would have been run by a separate independent commission. Congress also passed an international health research bill. The bill, a revised version of the Health for Peace Act, is designed to encourage and support international health research by using foreign currencies or credits available through the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act, Mutual Security Act or other foreign aid programs. The program will be carried out under the Secretary of HEW. But while Congress did get these bills through, it left unfinished the major share of legislation affecting the chemical industry: • A bill that would permit a permanent, stepped-up saline water conversion program was passed by the Senate but got stuck in a House committee. • The helium conservation bill, a measure which would allow the Interior Department to conserve helium by extracting it from helium-rich natural gas, was passed by the House and approved by a Senate committee, but the Senate didn't find time to vote on the measure. • Passing the Senate but getting no action in the House was a bill extending for another six years (to June 30, 1966) the $5 million total authorized for air pollution control. Present authority to spend this amount expired June 30. The extension would also give the Surgeon General authority to hold hearings on air pollution problems "of more than local interest." Oceanography. The week before recessing, the Senate hurried through a bill establishing a 10-year program of oceanography research. The measure provides about $10 million for construction of research ships, $12.4 million for operating the ships, $8.3 million to develop shore facilities for research, $37.2 million for basic re20
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JULY
11, 1 9 6 0
search, plus money for special research equipment (not to exceed $10 million a year) for the entire 10-year period. The bill is now awaiting action by a House committee. The foreign investment incentive bill, a measure designed to boost U.S. investments abroad by deferring payment of income taxes, saw no further action during the final days before Congress left Washington. Other important issues left unfinished include a bill which would reorganize the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and revise NASA's present patent policy; two bills designed to establish uniform federal patent policies; a bill to permit sale of General Aniline and Film despite pending litigation; a measure to change the Transportation of Explosives Act; a bill which would give $4.8 million a year in subsidies to small producers of lead and zinc. Both the Senate and House passed bills to boost research to find new industrial uses for farm crops, but the measures got stuck in a Senate-House conference committee. The proposal to set up a commission on a federal department of science saw no action. A Virgin Islands tax bill received two unrelated amendments during Congress's rush to recess. One amendment would abolish the present lead and zinc import quotas by setting up a system of import duties; the other amendment would give tax relief to Du Pont stockholders if that company is forced to sell its General Motors stock. Education. Both the House and Senate have passed school construction bills but authority for a SenateHouse conference to settle differences between the two bills has been blocked by the House Rules Committee. The four-year, $1.3 billion House measure denies funds to any state that is resisting desegregation; the two-year, $1.8 billion Senate measure would allow any state to use federal funds for either classroom construction or teachers' salaries. The House bill does not include funds for teachers' salaries. Top leaders, including Rep. Sam Rayburn (D.-Tex.), Speaker of the House, are working to reverse the Rules Committee's decision. In addition to the school construction issue, housing measures have also been blocked by the House Rules Committee. Both the House and Senate versions of these bills include a $500 million addition to the existing college housing loan program.
Chlorophyll A Is Synthesized, Twice Harvard's Woodward, German chemists develop separate paths to chlorophyll A Dr. Robert B. Woodward's efforts to work out a total synthesis of chlorophyll A are a success. The July 20 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society will contain details of the complicated reaction sequence that has occupied Dr. Woodward and coworkers for the last four years. The synthesis adds further proof of the structure of chlorophyll and provides new7 knowledge about the chemistry of chlorophyll—knowledge that may some day lead to a complete understanding of photosynthesis. Harvard University, where Dr. Woodward is Dormer Professor of Science, acknowledged the successful synthesis on July 1. Shortly before, the West German Association of Chemical Industry said that chlorophyll A had been synthesized by chemists at the Institute of Organic Chemistry in the Technische Hochschule of Munich. The Germans, Dr. M. Strell, Dr. A. Kolajanoff, and H. Koller, reported their work in Angeicandte Chemie for March 7 (page 169). Harvard's comment: "The methods of approach are entirely different, and the work of the German and of the Harvard chemists do not in any way confirm one another." Dr. Woodward's route to chlorophyll A goes through chlorin e,; (C&EN, June 9, 1958, page 35), a porphyrin-like molecule that has the same structure as chlorophyll except for the magnesium atom and some side chains. Dr. Woodward's synthetic approach to chlorin e(; involves two dipyrrylmethanes, one with free alpha positions and one with carbon yl groups. The complete chlorophyll A molecule was synthesized at Harvard last January, according to a statement issued by the university. But the product was a mixture of optical isomers. Dr. Woodward and his group spent another five months in the lab before the naturally occurring isomer was isolated from the mixture. Working with Dr. Woodward at various times during the past four years on the synthesis were 17 postdoctoral students from the U.S. and abroad.
