NEWS FOCUS
Congressional Outlook 91 David J. Hanson, Janice R. Long, and Pamela S. Zurer, C&EN Washington
The 102nd Congress returned to work on Jan. 3. It hadn't intended to, planning only a short meeting during which members would be sworn in and then a recess until reconvening for President Bush's state of the union address in late January. But the seemingly imminent prospect of combat in the Middle East changed those plans. What was to be a pro forma session turned into an unscheduled debate on the why and wherefore of the U.S. military presence in the region and Congress' role in the matter. That debate will go on as long as U.S. troops /' are in the Middle East, and it will overshadow all other issues facing Congress. Budget. First is the question of how to pay for a military operation that wasn't even included in the touted five-year budget deal locked in by Congress and the Bush Administration on the last day of the previous Congressional session. Under that deal the federal budget was divided into three broad categories—defense, discretionary domestic, and international programs— and spending caps were placed on each category. In addition, if either Congress or the Administration wants to fund a new initiative or provide more money than allowed for an old one, then it will have to either cut funding for other programs within that budget category or come up with new revenues to pay for it. That's called pay as you go. Thus, the 102nd Congress will find itself facing a number of hard choices when it comes to deciding how much money can be spent on what. And research funding, especially that for "big science" projects, may find itself between a rock and a hard place because of that pay-as-you-go budget deal. 10
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This is the year, predicts one Congressional staffer, when Congress will have to think seriously about priorities for research funding. The money just isn't there to fund all of the big science and space projects that have been the darlings of the Reagan and Bush administrations. He points out that the Senate Commerce Committee last year for the first time refused to au-
thorize a major new space program proposed by the Bush Administration—the Moon-Mars initiative, a program that had no clear plan, an unknown price tag, and no way to pay for it. He predicts that other such projects will face either the same fate this year or, at best, see their projected completion dates stretched out by years. Under the budget deal, discretionary domestic spending is allowed to rise only 4.7% in fiscal 1992 to $191 billion and by an additional 3.5% in fiscal 1993. That category covers all civilian federal research funding. But it also covers programs for food and nutrition, housing, veterans, farm subsidies, and unemployment, to name just a few. Defense spending, which, of course, includes defense-related R&D, which, in turn, accounts for more than half of the federal R&D budget, gets even less of an increase. Whether even those small increases will be possible given the conflict in the Middle East and a recession at home is an open question. When push comes to shove, research may well find itself on the short end of the stick. Energy. Congress' history of action on energy legislation is that if there isn't a crisis, not much is done. The current crisis in the Persian Gulf has certainly brought energy issues to the fore, and 1991 should be a busy year for the energy subcommittees. The first order of business may well be a close examination of the Bush Administration's national energy strategy,
which is finally expected to be ready early this year and which has already been heavily criticized by those who favor alternatives over conventional energy sources. Fuel efficiency is a phrase that will be heard often in Congress this year, and a bill mandating much stricter fuel efficiencies in automobiles will be introduced early in the session. Increased corporate automobile fuel efficiency, or CAFE, standards were part of last year's Clean Air Act deliberations, but were removed in the final compromise. Automakers, foreign and domestic, are solidly opposed to tougher economy standards, thus new legislation to increase average gasoline mileage faces another hard fight. The Persian Gulf crisis should give increased emphasis to the Department of Energy's programs on fossil fuels. Research and development and management priorities on conservation, clean-coal technologies, and a broad spectrum of other items will be dealt with. Concerns about the eventual nonavailability of oil as a fuel have given rise to renewed consideration of nuclear power. Congress is expected to take a close look at how DOE has reorganized its uranium enrichment programs over the past year and into the technology of advanced nuclear reactors. Research and development programs that will draw particular attention include those for high-temperature gas-cooled reactors and liquid-metal fast-cooled reactors. Congress also plans to hold early hearings on the fusion energy programs. Research budgets for fusion were cut again this past year but a DOE study calls for strengthening such efforts. Environment. The 101st Congress managed to compile a rather remarkable legislative record in the environmental area. It rewrote the Clean Air Act, enacted comprehensive oil spill liability and compensation legislation, and, at the last minute and almost unnoticed, enacted a three-year extension of the Superfund hazardous waste site cleanup program. That doesn't mean there is nothing left for the 102nd Congress to do. As Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell of Maine pointed out at the end of the last session, "The environmental agenda will demand further attention." He has recently indicated that one area he wants to see attended to is recycling. That's not an unreasonable goal. Both the Clean Water Act, which regulates how much pollution of what type can be discharged into the nation's waterways, and the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, which governs the treatment and disposal of both hazardous and solid waste, are up for renewal. However, the emphasis this time around will be on halting the generation of waste pollutants in the first place. Among the ideas up for consideration are mandatory recycling programs for municipalities and inJanuary 14, 1991 C&EN
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News Focus centives, if not outright directives, for industry to do what is necessary for it to generate less hazardous waste. These could include process, operation, a n d / o r equipment changes; product reformulation; and finding substitutes for some currently used materials. Sen. John Warner (R.-Va.) will be rei n t r o d u c i n g legislation, first introduced by him on the final day of the last session, designed to close a loophole in RCRA that allows shady disposers of hazardous wastes to call themselves recyclers and thus escape regulation. Also on the Congressional environmental agenda is legislation that would require each federal facility to determine what hazardous and solid waste it generates and whether it is in compliance with federal, state, and local environmental laws. If it is not in compliance, the facility would have to come up with a plan to bring itself into compliance. Similar legislation passed the House twice in the last Congress, but didn't clear the Senate. Ethics. Look for a new twist to be added this year to Congress' continuing scrutiny of the scientific research community. In addition to the ongoing attention to scientific misconduct and financial conflicts of interest in research, the way universities calculate the overhead costs charged to federal research grants is under investigation. At issue are the practices and procedures universities use to bill the federal government for the indirect costs of federally sponsored research. Investigators on the staff of Rep. John D. Dingell's (D.-Mich.) Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee of the Energy & Commerce Committee suspect the government is being overcharged—either through sloppy accounting practices or out of deliberate greed. The subcommittee gained a lot of experience ferreting out unjustified charges in the course of investigations of the overhead billing practices of defense contractors during the mid1980s. The initial focus of Dingell's scrutiny is Stanford University. An ongoing audit of Stanford by the Office of Naval Research—which has the responsibility for reviewing overhead costs for grants to Stanford from all federal agencies—has already uncovered questionable charges. The university has repaid almost $200,000 it charged the government for depreciation of its yacht. But Stanford president Donald Kennedy is defending other charges, such as $2000 per month for flowers for his official residence. Kennedy and other Stanford administrators likely will be invited to explain themselves at a hearing within the next month, a committee staff member tells C&EN. Dingell has also asked the General Accounting Office to examine cost-accounting procedures at several other universities. 12
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In the area of scientific misconduct, Dingell's subcommittee will soon issue a report on the coverup of abuses during what has come to be known as the "Baltimore affair." It is waiting to do so until after the National Institutes of Health releases its report on the scientific issues involved in the infamous case concerning irregularities in an immunology paper by Nobel Laureate David Baltimore, now president of Rockefeller University, and five other researchers. The NIH report—due out any day—is expected to conclude that Thereza Imanishi-Kari, a Tufts Uni%^:^) versity researcher who was one of Baltimore's coauthors, falsified data. The subcommittee report addresses why earlier investigations at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the work was conducted, and at Tufts failed to uncover the misconduct. Dingell likely will hold a fourth hearing into the case in what has become an annual Washington rite of spring. The House Committee on Government Operations' Subcommittee on Human Resources & Intergovernmental Relations is keeping a watchful eye on NIH's attempts to develop policies governing financial conflicts of interest among federally funded scientists. Subcommittee chairman Ted Weiss (D.-N.Y.) may introduce legislation on the issue if forthcoming NIH rules do not satisfy him. Current proposals circulating at NIH are limited to controlling the financial holdings of scientists involved in clinical trials of medical products and likely are too narrow to pass muster with Weiss. Global change. Strategies for limiting global climate change brought on by accumulating greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and methane will be ardently debated in Washington again this year. The topic will become highly visible in early February when the Bush Administration hosts a swarm of diplomats at the first formal negotiations aimed at developing an international treaty on global warming. But the scope of the global-change issue is much larger than matters Congress handles most adeptly. "Compared to global change, the 10-year-long debate over the Clean Air Act will seem like a walk through a pleasant park," says one House staff member. In the last Congress, Sen. Timothy E. Wirth (D.-Colo.) and Sen. Albert Gore, Jr. (D.-Tenn.), and then-Rep. Claudine Schneider (R.-R.I.) introduced broad, sweeping bills designed to address global-change issues. Their bills encompassed everything from energy policy and pollution prevention to deforestation and population control. None of the bills made it into law, although some energy-related portions of Wirth's bill did clear the Senate. Schneider is no longer in Congress, having lost in her attempt to unseat the Democratic Senator from
Rhode Island, Claiborne Pell, and it's not yet clear whether Gore and Wirth will try to introduce their bills again. In either case, any action Congress takes on the issue of the global environment this year likely will tackle only small bits and pieces of the problem. For example, DOE's renewable energy and energy conservation R&D programs are likely to get a boost from Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D.-Calif.). Those programs have been languishing since the days of the Carter Administration and Brown is eager to reverse the trend in his new role as head of the House Committee on Science, Space & Technology. According to a committee staff member, Brown plans to push alternative energy R&D, authorizing legislation early enough in the year so that the appropriations committee that controls DOE's budget has a clear policy to work with. Furthermore, with the Persian Gulf situation drawing attention to U.S. dependency on foreign oil imports, the forthcoming debate on a national energy policy may stimulate some new legislation. Some members of Congress will argue that moving away from use of fossil fuels would not only decrease carbon dioxide emissions but also increase U.S. national security. And the problem of balancing the budget could raise the chances of Congress' imposing a carbon tax. Environmentalists and economists argue that a fuel tax based on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of energy—which would hit coal hardest, then oil, then natural gas—could help limit carbon dioxide emissions. A need to find ways to finance the stay of U.S. troops in the Middle East and to alleviate the effects of a recession may provide added incentive for such a tax. Health. A number of health-related environmental issues are expected to surface in the 102nd Congress including a bill designed to reduce indoor air pollution. A similar bill was introduced last year, but didn't get far because of the overwhelming focus on outdoor air pollution. Concern also is continuing about the effects of pesticides on health. Efforts are likely to be renewed to legislate controls on the export of pesticides not approved for use in the U.S. that might contaminate U.S. food imports. The health effects of repeated malathion spraying to control fruit flies is another area of concern, as is the adequacy of warning and use labels used on lawn care chemicals.
Hearings are also likely on increasing the regulations on chemicals that are used in making illegal drugs. More controls on the sale and distribution of substances used in making crack cocaine and amphetamine derivatives would be the goal. At NIH, renewed efforts could be made to overturn the Health & Human Services-imposed ban on certain types of fetal research that has stifled some research. There may also be legislation again this year specifically to eliminate race and sex bias in NIH-funded research studies. Intellectual property. The most important issue facing Congress' judiciary committees this year may be legislation implementing the intellectual property provisions of the Uruguay round of negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade, if the negotiations are ever completed. The U.S. is working to get common standards for all types of intellectual property—patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets— included in the treaty. Common standards may well necessitate changes in U.S. patent law, such as switching from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file system for issuing patents. The Administration had sought and obtained from Congress the promise that GATT-implementing legislation would be placed on a fast track, that is the whole package would face an up or down vote, with no amendments allowed. However, that promise expires March 1, and Congress thereafter will be free to amend the various parts of the agreement. The unexpected election defeat in November of Robert W. Kastenmeier (D.-Wis.), the knowledgeable, longtime chairman of the House subcommittee that handles intellectual property issues, leaves a leadership void that will be hard to fill. Still, Congress is expected to take another stab at settling the long-running dispute over whether genetically altered animals are patentable subject matter by saying, "Yes, they are, but human beings are not." Also up for consideration is legislation explicitly stating that making or using a patented invention solely for purposes of research or experimentation is not an act of patent infringement. Another bill would bring DOE into line with other government agencies by telling it that it is permissible for large, private companies that operate DOE laboratories to retain title to patents
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News Focus
arising from governmentfunded research. DOE has been operating under different policies depending on whether the contractor running the laboratory was a university, a nonprofit organization, or a large corporation. Pork barrel. In response to the numerous earmarks for various research projects in the Department of Defense's fiscal 1991 appropriation bill, an extremely irritated Sen. Sam Nunn (D.-Ga.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has promised that one of the first priorities for his committee this year will be a series of hearings on university research, and on the specifically earmarked projects in the appropriations bill. Nunn told his fellow Senators on the final day of the last session, "I intend to hear directly from the Secretary of Defense to determine his views on each and every one of the earmarked projects in the conference report. . . . I am anxious to learn why the Navy's existing laboratories and design bureau are so limited that we must add $24 million for a nonprofit consortium formed by Lehigh University to study shipbuilding design and manufacturing methods. I would like to know about Lehigh's qualifications, what kind of experts they have for this kind of shipbuilding design." Research. It's too early to say what, if any, action might result, but some in the Senate are interested in exploring the reasons behind the outcry over the lack of funding for individual researchers. They are interested in finding out whether the perceived shortfall is the result of a real lack of money or of more and more researchers applying for a piece of a pie that is actually growing. Then there is the related question of why the cost of funding an individual laboratory is climbing much faster than the rate of inflation. Another simmering issue is how the federal research budget should be reallocated to better meet national needs now that the Cold War is over and the focus is shifting to economic survival. The House science committee got off to a fast start 14
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under the leadership of its new chairman, Brown, with first-day hearings on future directions for the National Aeronautics & Space Administration. And by the end of the month Brown expects to have a two-tiered master plan outlining the issues other than alternative energy and energy conservation that the committee will be concentrating on during this Congress and the legislative goals it hopes to accomplish. The plan will also include an agenda of hearings that will be held during the coming year. Safety. Perhaps the most significant legislative action on safety last year came from the year-end budget reconciliation in which civil fines for violations of the Occupational Safety & Health Act were raised sevenfold. These were added not only to encourage worker safety efforts but also to help balance the budget. Several other attempts to amend the safety law were less successful, notably efforts to increase the kinds of violations that could lead to criminal prosecution. However, that issue will be back on the table this year. Congressional committees already have a number of health and safety issues on their 1991 agendas. One piece of legislation that has been seen before and will be seen again calls for notification of workers exposed to high-risk hazardous chemicals. Some form of this bill has been introduced in the past two Congresses and each time gets a little further. For example, in the last session, a notification bill passed the House but did not get to the Senate floor. Another major bill this year will focus on construction safety. Such a bill will probably require increased reporting of all construction accidents and notification of when construction projects will be started. The issue of subcontracting parts of construction projects will also be under scrutiny. This is a sensitive subject for the chemical industry because several major accidents in the past few years have been linked to contract workers in chemical plants and questions have been raised as to whether they were given enough safety training. Oversight hearings of OSHA are also a possibility in 1991. Some of the issues likely to be looked into during the hearings include increased whistle-blower protection for employees, increased federal coverage of state and local workers, review of the process OSHA uses to approve state safety programs, and safety and health protection of federal employees under the law. Also expected to surface is legislation that would transfer authority for worker safety at DOE facilities from DOE to OSHA. This would affect both DOE and contractor-operated DOE facilities. The increased concern over repetitive-motion injuries is sure to be a topic this year. Ergonomie issues received a lot of attention last year and Congress wants to know what OSHA is doing to correct these problems. Video display terminals will be a special concern, both because of ergonomie problems and the issue of alleged radiation health effects. Similarly, expect to see hearings on fetal protection policies as well. This controversial area was the subject of a recent Supreme Court ruling and has never been adequately addressed by Congress. D
