JNEWS OF THE WEEK \
GOP TAKES KNIFE TO EPA House panel slashes agency's budget 34% ouse Republicans have demonstrated anew their resolve to curtail federal regulations by slashing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency. But in the Senate, a regulatory reform bill championed by Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.) has been successfully filibustered. The House Appropriations Committee has approved a fiscal 1996 VA, HUD & Independent Agencies funding bill that cuts EPA's budget $2.3 billion from current levels, leaving it with $4.9 billion. And the panel approved 17 riders to the bill that limit EPA actions. //r The House ... voted a 34% cut in EPA's budget," EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner told a press conference. "This is the biggest reduction by far for any major agency." If passed by the full House and Senate and signed by the President, the bill would slash all "important environmental programs 50%," Browner says. The bill targets EPA programs Republicans believe overstep the agency's authority. Some programs would be stopped in their tracks. For example, the
H
— Office of Research & Development— which gets a modest increase for most of of its activities—loses its entire $79 million >n budget for the Environmental Technology jy Initiative, which promotes development it of innovative technologies. The Gulf of 3f Mexico program is excised, as is all fundiing for the environmental justice pro> gram's "Partners in Protection" grants. eOther programs, such as those imple2r menting the Clean Air and Clean Water id Acts, are restricted but not terminated entirely. For example, implementation of ji pollution control standards for the Great at Lakes is slowed to give states more time le to comply with the standards. And a hold is put on new rules aimed at reduccing pollutants emitted by oil refineries. s. Browner says all of these restrictions is could lead to deterioration of public ic health protection. Moreover, in a move Browner says is "sharply limits citizens/ right to know N about toxics released in their communiity," the bill bars use of EPA funds to to collect specific-substance toxic use data. a. Such a Toxics Use Inventory, based on m the existing Toxics Release Inventory, is "an unwarranted and unauthorized step p
beyond the clear intent" of the law, says the panel's report on the bill. The panel also cut the budget for the Superfund hazardous waste cleanup program from $1.5 billion to $1 billion. This level is supposed to allow continued activity at existing sites, but will not allow addition of new sites to the priority cleanup list, And in an unusual move, the committee ordered the $1 billion budget to be paid from the general treasury, forbidding supply of the funds from the Superfund trust fund. The committee report provides no explanation for this provision, but it may be meant to save the trust fund for an emergency. The trust fund is derived from a tax on chemicals produced by the oil and chemical industries. Authority to collect that tax expires at the end of the year and must be renewed. The bill also deals with the controversial Delaney clause. One rider stops EPA from issuing regulations revoking the use of pesticides because of the Delaney clause. This clause, an amendment to the 1958 Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act, prohibits addition to food of any substance
House Appropriations Committee cuts R&D funding in fiscal 1996 budget Few, if any, programs are escapingg the budget scalpel or ax wielded byy the House Appropriations Commit-ttee as it works on the fiscal 1996 fed-Ieral budget. R&D programs are noo exception, though most do not facee anything like the 34% cut the panel>1 has slated for the Environmental Pro->tection Agency. Among committee actions, as of press »s time, are the following (all reductionss are from current-year funding levels): Cut funding 1% to $2.3 billion for•r the National Science Foundation's re-\search and related activities account,t, which funds research grants andd awards. Cut $354 million, or 6%, from thee
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JULY 24,1995 C&EN
National Aeronautics & Space Administration's R&D account, leaving it with $5.5 billion. The committee canceled the planned Cassini mission to Saturn and terminated support of the Consortium for International Earth Science Networks. Eliminate funding for the Department of Commerce's Advanced Technology Program, with a current budget of $341 million, and essentially freeze funding for the National Institute of Standards & Technology's scientific and technical research and services at $263 million, Cut funding for the Agricultural Research Service 1% to $706 million, for cooperative state research and ed-
ucation activities 10% to $389 million, and for forest research 6% to $182 million. Cut funding for the Department of Energy's fossil energy R&D activities 9% to $385 million. Terminate the Department of the Interior's National Biological Service, but transfer most of its responsibilities to the U.S. Geological Survey, whose budget increases 20% to $687 million. Appropriations Committee decisions have been winning the endorsement of the full House with relative ease. The panel's most recent actions are also likely to be approved. Janice Long
legislation already passed in the House but stalled in the Senate—as an attempt to dismantle environmental protections. "We are seeing a concerted, orchestrated effort by Congress to prevent this agency from doing what the public expects/ 7 she stresses. "And, while denying protections to the public as a whole, there are dozens of earmarks for specific projects. The special interests are having a field day." The bill is likely to pass the House soon and to move into the Senate. However, the Senate likely will undo many of the House's changes to EPA programs. The Senate does not share the House's strong conviction that EPA needs to be reined in—as shown by last week's debate on the Dole-Johnston Regulatory Reform Act (C&EN, July 17, page 45). Browner: bills deny protection to public That act called for establishment of potentially burdensome judicial review that has been determined to cause can- requirements for final regulations and cer in humans or animals. EPA has been for a new citizen petition process to seek forced by court order to obey this law review of specific regulations. Dole explicitly in regulating pesticide residues could not get enough support to break a on processed foods. That order has al- filibuster, so the act has not come to a ready caused EPA to ban use of several floor vote. The Senate has set aside the issue for now, but may take it up in the products on a number of crops. Browner views the appropriations fall if chances of passage improve. bill—together with regulatory reform David Hanson
MIT head warns federal cuts will decimate R&D U.S. research universities are crying murder over what they figure will be 30% cuts in federal R&D funding by 2002—the year in which the Republican majority in Congress says the federal budget must be balanced. One of the research community's top spokesmen, Charles M. Vest, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took to a major podium last week to highlight the cause. He joins an increasingly coordinated campaign by universities and their lobbyists to forestall the damage they foresee. Vest, a former professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, appeared at the National Press Club speaker's luncheon in Washington, D.C.—a forum routinely broadcast on C-Span and National Public Radio and thus designed to reach a highly educated, influential audience. Vest uses strong words to underscore the stakes: "We are in danger of disinvesting in our future. The cost of drifting toward mediocrity in science, technology, and advanced education is simply too great to pay. Is a one-third
reduction in civilian research and development really a savings? Or is it a body blow to our national innovation system, our future competitiveness, and our leadership?"
Vest: danger of disinvesting in future
He points to studies that demonstrate a 25 to 50% return on investment in research. Even "more dramatic," he says, is a recent study by MIT's computer science laboratory. The study finds that over the past decade, the $5 billion spent on information technology through universities "created one-third to one-half of the major breakthroughs in computer and communications companies. Today, these businesses account for $500 billion of the U.S. gross domestic product, a return of at least 3,000%." Vest says the impact of federal cuts will be all the greater because of recent federal moves that add to university costs. "At MIT," he tells C&EN, "we are already facing $49 million of absolutely certain cuts due to changes in such rules as federal cost reimbursement. If our research funds were also to literally go down 30% in real terms, that would sum up to a loss on the order of $128 million. We cannot absorb that kind of a loss and not be an entirely different institution." Vest notes three major federal policy changes that promise to worsen MIT's fiscal condition. One is recategorizarion of parts of indirect costs for doing research, forcing universities to accept a lower percentage of those costs per grant. A second change involves regulations that will effectively bar an important employee benefit: The government says it will no longer reimburse universities for tuition assistance they provide to faculty and staff members and their dependents. "That will cost us $2 million per year," he says. "The third change—and most important of all," he adds, "is the continuing increase in the number of federal agencies that are simply unwilling to pay anything approaching full tuition for students with fellowships or research assistantships." MIT has thus been forced to find ways to cut costs throughout the school. It has established an ambitious management reengineering program that involves 200 staff members. "We have totally replaced the software that maintains all of our management information with commercial packages," Vest explains. "We've changed our mail system, our purchasing system. We're trying to do everything we can, short of destroying the sense of community in the institution, to meet these costs. But there's only so much you can do." Wil Lepkowski JULY 24,1995 C&EN
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