Government
Congress works on new deficit reduction law Congress is making a second attempt at putting some teeth into an effort to rein in the federal budget. When it returns on Wednesday, one of the first items of business will be a House-Senate conference on a new version of an old plan to force the federal deficit down to zero. When the Automatic Deficit Reduction & Control Act, better known as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bill, was first enacted in 1985, it mandated a zero deficit by 1991. If Congress didn't meet specific deficit targets in the regular appropriations process each fiscal year, an automatic procedure was triggered that ended with the President signing an executive order making across-the-board cuts in federal spending to get the deficit down to the target level. Half of the cuts came out of defense programs and half out of civilian programs. The process was used once in fiscal 1986 (C&EN, Jan. 20, 1986, page 4). But t h e n the law's enforcement section was overturned by the Supreme Court on the grounds that an employee of Congress—the Comptroller General, who had the final word on how much was to be cut from what programs—couldn't tell the President what to do. The new version of the plan, approved by the Senate just before the August recess, gets around that objection by having an executive branch agency—the Office of Management & Budget—decide on the final version of the budget cuts. The deficit targets that would be established under the new plan are $150 billion in 1988, $130 billion in 1989, $90 billion in 1990, $45 billion in 1991, and zero in 1992. The comparable targets in the 1985 law were $108 billion in 1988, $72 billion in 1989, $36 billion in 1990, and zero in 1991. Once again half of the cuts would come out of defense programs and the other half out of civilian programs. And, once again, there is a loophole in the plan. The 1985 law said that no more than $20 billion could be cut from the 1986 budget. This version probably will say that fiscal 1988 cuts 26
September 7, 1987 C&EN
can't exceed $36 billion. However, that may be more than is necessary. The latest estimate from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) pegs the fiscal 1988 deficit at $181 billion. The conference committee could choose to meet either the earlier 1985 target or the one set in the Senate bill. CBO has estimated how much would have to be cut from the federal budget to meet either target in fiscal 1988. Meeting the 1985 target would require a 14.8% cut in defense spending and a 21.2% cut in nondefense spending. Meeting the lesser Senate target would require a 5.8% cut for defense and a 7.5% cut for nondefense programs. CBO uses as its baseline figure an agency's 1987 budget adjusted for inflation. That figure is in most cases much less than the Administration's budget request, as exemplified by what could happen to the National Science Foundation's fiscal 1988 research and related activities budget if automatic cuts were again instituted. NSF's current research bud-
get is $1.407 billion. Its CBO 1988 baseline budget is $1.477 billion. Meeting the 1985 target would mean cutting $369 million from the baseline budget, leaving NSF with 21% less to spend than it currently has. Meeting the Senate target for 1988 would mean cutting $176 million, an 8% reduction. Both figures are well below the fiscal 1988 budget request of $1.635 billion. House leaders have indicated that they are willing to put some teeth back in the budget cutting law, if only as a mechanism for forcing a compromise with President Reagan on the budget. The President has stated that he is adamantly opposed both to cutting defense spending and raising taxes, and Congressional leaders have said they won't make any further drastic cuts in civilian spending. So if the deficit is to be reduced, something has to give. Reagan, of course, could veto any new version of the automatic deficit reduction law. Janice Long, Washington
Drug maker tries to get antibiotic off toxic tist Although details are sketchy because of pending court challenges, A. L. Laboratories of Fort Lee, N.J., has been trying to get the antibiotic bacitracin removed from the Environmental Protection Agency's list of extremely hazardous substances under the agency's community rightto-know law. Bacitracin is a widely used antibiotic in creams and ointments and is used extensively in animal feeds to prevent disease. However, through an apparent mixup, it was included in a list of dangerous compounds prepared by EPA several years ago. Congress put that list into the 1986 reauthorization of Superfund, even though by then it was known that bacitracin and some other compounds did not belong on the list. Part of the new law requires companies that make more than a certain amount of a dangerous compound to notify state agencies that the compound is present, along with details of production and storage. A. L. Labs took EPA to court to try to get its product off this hazardous substances list. The three-
judge panel of the federal appeals court in the District of Columbia refused to consider the case, saying it did not have the authority to tell EPA to remove chemicals from the list. The company declines to comment on its suit, citing possible jeopardy to its court case. So it is not clear what action might be taken next. EPA has assigned bacitracin the largest threshold planning quantity, 10,000 lb, that n e e d s to be reported. Only a manufacturer, such as A. L. Labs, would be expected to have that large an amount on hand. EPA already has admitted that the chemical probably should not be on the dangerous compound list. The agency has committed itself to a reassessment of bacitracin and other chemicals on the list that present a similar minor hazard. However, this will take a long time to complete because data is not yet available on chronic risks from exposure to these chemicals. In the meantime, bacitracin remains listed as extremely hazardous. David Hanson, Washington
