SCIENCE POLICY:
Call for U.S. Lead
Ralph Nader Analyzing a collapse
John C. Esposito A thrust at Sen. Muskie
minimal standards which might lead to maximum controls. The Nixon Administration's planned overhaul of the 1967 act involving national emissions standards, Mr. Nader's group charges, is either artlessly drafted or contrived, riddled with loopholes, and lacks enforcement means. Yet Mr. Nader's group offers no alternative. The CPI and industry in general also receive their share of lumps. A pamphlet published in 1952 by the Manufacturing Chemists Association spelled out the path for the 1967 act, the report asserts. MCA president William Driver denies that his association was in collusion with anyone "to force our firmly held beliefs on the public." Federal and National Industrial Conference Board statistics in the report show that in 1969 chemical and allied products grossed $55.5 billion, and the industry spent $47 million on air and water pollution control on top of capital investment already made. At 0.08%, the CPI's per cent of pollution spending against gross revenues in 1969 ranks it below primary iron and steel (0.14%) and paper and allied products (0.25%) but above petroleum refining (0.02%). 8 C&EN MAY 18, 1970
The report of the President's Task Force on Science Policy makes one point clear at the beginning: It's not just another plea for more m o n e y even though "urgent and critical funding problems do exist in many areas of science and technology." Instead, it tackles policy issues, and makes seven "primary" recommendations—including a new funding level for the National Science Foundation—to the Administration for action. It recommends, for instance, that the President set, as a national policy, the need for vigorous, high-quality science and technology, and call for, as a national goal, continuing U.S. leadership in science and technology relevant to other national goals. The overriding recommendation, however, concerns the federal commitment to funding science. What's needed, it says, is better-integrated management of federal support for basic and applied research. The National Science Foundation would be the lead federal agency for federal support of basic research. NSF support would be tied to a percentage of the nation's gross national product. The task force suggests 0.1% of GNP as a reasonable level. For fiscal 1971, this would give NSF about $800 million compared to an Administration request of about $500 million. Under the plan NSF would be responsible for about one third of federally funded basic and applied research. It now provides one eighth of all federal support of fundamental research and one sixth of academic research. Mission-oriented agencies such as
No employment clearing house at Toronto There will be no National Employment Clearing House run in conjunction with the CIC/ACS meeting in Toronto. The next National Clearing House will be at the national meeting in Chicago, Sept 13-17, at the Palmer House Hotel. Starting with the issue of June 1, members of the Society who are unemployed shall be allowed without charge one nondisplay insertion per month for a maximum of six in a calendar year in C&EN's situation wanted classified advertisement section. Such insertions shall not exceed 50 words each. See C&EN, May 25, ACS News, for details.
the Pentagon would continue to support "considerable" basic research. The research funding restrictions imposed on the Pentagon by the Mansfield amendment is in itself, the task force says, not unreasonable. What is unreasonable is the "apparent thought" that the Pentagon should drop much of the basic research it now supports. Moreover, national security-related R&D should get increased emphasis—"even at the expense of current military hardware procurement, if necessary." The use of all federal laboratories should be reviewed, the task force says, and the Office of Science and Technology should be the focal point in the executive branch for setting priorities for competing scientific research programs, rather than having the priorities set, in part by default, by the Bureau of the Budget.
THERMAL POLLUTION:
Interior Gets Tough Disbelief, shock, dismay were the reactions of industries, municipalities, and others to the new Interior Department standard for heated water discharges into Lake Michigan. Twelve days ago in Chicago, Carl L. Klein, Interior's Assistant Secretary for Water Quality and Research, stunned the executive session of the Lake Michigan Enforcement Conference by reading a new policy position: "The minimum possible waste heat shall be added to the waters of Lake Michigan. In no event will heat discharges be permitted to exceed 1° F. rise over ambient at the point of discharge." Implications of the stringent standard are far-reaching. A Federal Water Quality Administration spokesman tells C&EN that it isn't unreasonable to suggest that the standard might be extended, at least to all the Great Lakes. For Lake Michigan itself, bordered by Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the standard could be jointly adopted by those states—which could be done in a matter of weeks— or the standard could be enforced by the Interior Department through FWQA—which would require at least seven months and perhaps much longer if there were court delays. The new standard may be modified before it takes effect. If the standard were enforced as presently outlined, electric power plants (both conventional and nuclear) would have to shut down. In Baltimore, meanwhile, a Maryland official argued that federal antipollution rules weren't strict enough. Dr. Neil Solomon, secretary of health and mental hygiene, urged that Balti-
