The Chemical World This Week
MAY ι, 19 β ι
WASKN . GTOK C O N C E N T R A T E S • USDA will sell surplus corn to producers of ethanol, butanol, or acetone as a replacement for Cuban molasses. The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to negotiate contracts to furnish grain on a monthly basis for a period of one year. Price of the grain will be negotiated with indi vidual producers and contracts will contain a renegotiation clause to prevent excessive profits. Processors taking part in the program will be for bidden to use molasses during the life of their contracts with USDA, and the contracts will re strict imports of molasses. USDA officials pre dict that less than 15 million bushels of corn will be sold under the program*. Last year USDA proposals to set up a similar program drew storms of protest from industry ( C&EN, March 28, 1960, page 31). • Identical bids submitted to government agen cies will be publicized under terms of an Execu tive Order issued by President Kennedy last week. Full details of identical bids received on all federal purchases amounting to more than $10,000 must be submitted to the Attorney Gen eral, who in turn will forward the information to the President and to Congress. Purpose of the order is to discourage future submission of identi cal bids and to ensure that the Attorney General has at his disposal "all information which may tend to establish a conspiracy in restraint of trade and which may warrant further investigation with a view to preferring civil or criminal charges." State and local governments are also urged to for ward similar information to the Attorney General for possible action. • U.S. rayon staple producers have asked the Tariff Commission to reconsider its decision that imports of the fiber do not threaten serious injury to the domestic industry ( C&EN, April 17, page 21). According to the Rayon Staple Fiber Producers Association, the Tariff Commission erred in using data for 1960 to show there was no increase in imports because 1960 was a recession year; it was an off-year in the textile cycle and the market weakness in rayon staple resulted from price uncertainty triggered by import competi tion. RSFPA asks the commission to reverse its decision and grant "appropriate tariff relief." Meanwhile, the Tariff Commission has launched investigations to determine whether imports of rayon staple from Cuba and West Germany are likely to injure domestic producers. The investi
gations result from a Treasury Department ruling that imports from these countries are being sold for less than fair market value. • A strong program of government-owned atomic power plants is needed to assure the development of economic atomic power within a reasonable time, Rep. Chet Holifield (D.-Calif.), chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic En ergy, told a meeting of the American Public Power Association in San Antonio, Tex., last week. Branding the previous Administration's partnership program "clumsy and cumbersome," Rep. Holifield charged that if federal participa tion continues to be limited to providing subsi dies and research funds, the rate of atomic power development will be controlled by privately owned utilities and big equipment manufac turers, which would slow progress and could lead to monopoly. • Government efforts to coordinate and make available research information developed from its programs are inadequate, says the Senate Sub committee on Reorganization in a report on infor mation handling in federally-supported research. Interagency information systems now in exist ence, says Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Hubert Humphrey ( D.-Minn. ), are a "hodgepodge; they are underplanned, undernourished, and under used." The committee recommends that all federal documentation centers expand their programs of cooperation with one another, put more emphasis on making information available from projects which have been abandoned or cancelled. Ultimate goal would be a governmentwide complex of information systems to record all data developed under federal R&D projects. • Two more lots of eye make-up have been seized by FDA on the grounds that they contain nonpermitted colors. During a nationwide in vestigation which is still continuing, the Food and Drug Administration has found the banned colors in eye pencils produced by eight leading cosmetics manufacturers. According to FDA, these products contain synthetic organic colors. These colors are ruled out for use in eye make-up under the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cos metic Act and the 1960 Color Additives Amend ment because the colors have not been shown to be safe for use in the area of the eye. MAY
1,
1961
C&EN
19
