WASHINGTON—Members of Congress debating funding for the Superconducting Supercollider have elicited a promise from the chairman of the House science committee for “a full review” of the cost of various large-scale science projects being contemplated by federal officials.
Rep. Robert Roe (D-N.J.) made that pledge during debate last month on his bill to authorize $1.1 billion in the next three years for construction of the SSC. But anticipated across-the-board spending cuts to trim the 1988 federal deficit caused many members of his Committee on Science, Space and Technology to press for a ranking of several multibillion-dollar research projects that are planned or already under way.
“After we finish this effort,” Roe said during a five-hour discussion of the bill by the committee, “one of our major priorities as a committee has to be a full review of our entire program. Such a review will let us come back to Congress ...
