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CONCENTRATES
• Presidential Science Adviser, Dr. Jerome Β. Wiesner, is "thinking" of resigning early ne*t year to return to academic life, but t t e e is no official announcement of his intentions from the White House as yet Dr. Wiesner, who doubles as Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and director of the powerful White House Office of Science and Technology has been on leave of absence from the Massachusetts Insti tute of Technology since January 1961 when he assumed the Presidential science advisory post Before coming to Government, Dr, Wiesner was professor of electrical engineering at MIT and director of the school's big electronics research laboratory. < • A long-awaited bill oil stockpile problems has been introduced by Sen. Stuart Symington (Dr-Mo.). S. 2272 would eliminate some of the confusion about the number of stockpiles by creating a national stockpile of strategic materials and a materials reserve. It would give the Presi dent sole authority to set stockpile goals and would require almost all information about stock pile activities to be made public. Under the bill, surplus materials could be sold 60 days after a detailed proposal is sent to the Armed Services Committees of both House and Sepate. Present law requires a six-month waiting period plus Congressional approval of any proposed sale. Tf any progress [in reducing stockpile surplus] is to be made, it would seem unavoidable that we must end the procedure of requiring the almost unanimous consent of everybody concerned," the Senator says. • "The honeymoon in research and development is over; the day of ill-defined objectives for R&D programs, of gross overruns in costs, of blurred and overlapping management responsibility is rapidly coming to an end," says Rep. Melvin Price (D.-I1L). As proof, he points to the increasingly close scrutiny by Congress of the space program, the sharp cuts made by the House in funds for basic research, and the appointment of a special House committee on government research. In Rep. Price's opinion, responsible officials in both Government and industry will have to take steps to overcome these deficiencies before Congress and the people lose faith in those responsible for directing vital research and development pro grams.
• New laws may be required to permit beer concentrate to develop Its full potential.
Some brewers urge the House Ways and Means Committee to introduce legislation to permit breweries producing the concentrate to sell the product to any brewery. Internal Revenue Serv ice rules, slated to take effect Dec. 1, pemiit the sale of concentrate only to affiliates of the brewery producing it (C&EN, Sept 9, page 2Ώ). How* ever, other brewers urge the committee to out law beer concentrate on the grounds that it would create monopoly and that it would require a new law to make the sale of concentrate legal. Rep resentatives of Union Carbide» developer of one of the beer concentration processes, urge the committee to take no action which might further delay the commercial introduction of beer recon stituted from eoncentrate. • A compromise on federol oid for college con struction seems likely to be approved by
Congress. The House has just approved the compromise and action in the Senate is scheduled for this week. The conference committee dropped a controversial Senate provision to per mit a court test of whether federal aid for churchrelated schools is constitutional. The compromise permits construction funds to be used for class rooms and laboratories for instruction in physical and natural sciences, mathematics, and foreign languages, and for libraries. This is less restric tive than the Senate version but not as broad as that of the House. The conferees also agreed on a three-year program to cost $1.2 billion. ί An oir pollution control bill hos been opproved by the Special Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Senate Public Works Com mittee. Additions to S. 432 made by the sub committee include provisions for research on ex tracting sulfur from fuel, research on determining harmful levels of individual air pollutants, and creation of a joint industry-government technical committee to study air pollution caused by auto mobile exhausts and fuel combustion. Still in the bill is a provision which would permit the Gov ernment to step into interstate air pollution problems without waiting for a request for in tervention from state or local authorities. This provision was opposed by the chemical industry at earlier hearings on the bill (C&EN, Sept 23, page 27). NOV. IX, 1963 C&EN, 19
