Why Should We Fund The SSC?

Projects, Anyway? AUTHOR: Jeffrey Mervis, p.11,13. Twice in a recent eight-day span, the United States House of Representatives debated the proper balance between "big" and "little" science. In both cases, big science won. The debates preceded separate votes on appropriations bills for fiscal year 1992. Although the bills include proposed funding for such items as low-income housing and federal water projects, most of the more than 10 hours spent discussing them centered on the value of two megascience projects: the Energy Department's superconducting supercollider (SSC) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Freedom space station. In both cases, the underlying issue was the comparative payoffs of the two undertakings, in particular, whether these multibillion-dollar efforts are worth the cost and what effect they will have on hundreds of other projects that enhance the human condition. Resolution of the matters stands to impact the professional futures of thousands of working scientists. On May 29, representatives argued the merits of the SSC and its planned $434 million appropriation (already trimmed from the administration's $534 million request) for 1992. Although the project represents only 2 percent of a $21 billion bill that funds most of DOE as well as hundreds of water projects, an amendment to delete funding for the SSC monopolized the 3 1/2-hour debate on the bill. The amendment, offered by Reps. Howard Wolpe (D-Mich.), Dennis Eckart (D-Ohio), Jim Slattery (D-Kans.), and Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), was defeated, 251 to 165, after which the House easily approved the entire bill. Then, on June 6, the legislators spent more than seven hours arguing about an amendment to restore a $1.9 billion cut in the space station that was proposed by Rep. Bob Traxler (D-Mich.), chairman of the relevant appropriations subcommittee. Again, a project that is only a tiny part of an $80 billion bill that funds such agencies as NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Veterans Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development dominated the discourse. The amendment to restore funding, offered by Reps. Jim Chapman (D-Texas) and Bill Lowery (R-Calif.), was approved, 240 to 173, with the help of heavy lobbying by the Bush administration, after which the House quickly adopted the entire bill. Following are excerpts from the comments of some of the representatives who took part in this unusual debate on federal science policy. The votes forced lawmakers, all of whom profess to be strong supporters of science, to specify exactly what they mean when they declare such allegiance. For many of them, it was not an easy task. --Jeffrey Mervis REP. JIM SLATTERY (D-Kans.): "We need to examine the impact that the SSC program will have on already underfunded basic research programs across the country. Consider this fact: The $434 million this year for the SSC is enough money to give two research universities in each state $4.34 million for basic research. In future years we will need to spend about $1 billion a year to construct and operate the SSC. That is enough money to give two research universities in each state $10 million a year. "Are we going to get anything out of the SSC? The answer is, yes, we are. But there's a more basic question: Will our country be better off 10 years, 20 years from now if we pour all of this money into the SSC? Or will we be better off if we take part of this money and put it into desperately needed basic research in our universities all across this country? I have concluded that we will be much better off by supporting small science, and not this big project that is certain to drain enormous sums of money from desperately underfunded basic research. With the adoption and support of the SSC, we are going to choke off basic research in this country. There is no other way to look at it." REP. SHERWOOD BOEHLERT (R-N.Y.): "Whose priority is the SSC, anyway? Not the nation's struggling young scientists, who are starving for individual-investigator grants across a wide variety of fields. Not the nation's scientific societies, who support the SSC only to the extent that other needs are met first. Not the nation's leading corporations, who see the SSC as having fewer industrial spinoffs than any other big-science project. Not the House of Representatives, which voted last year to discontinue the project if it was going to cost the federal government more than $5 billion. The SSC is a priority for only three groups: for Texas officials--and we can all understand that--who obtained a giant public works project for their state; for DOE officials, who would rather continually break promises made to Congress than cancel the project; and for a relatively small group of researchers in an esoteric field, who, understandably, think their research is more important than anyone s." REP. ROBERT WALKER (R-Pa.): "Somewhere along the line, if you're going to spend deficit money, it ought to be invested. Where we are going to benefit is on some of the science research that we are funding. When we are spending it on food stamps and social welfare, the fact is that we are eating up all that money, and those future generations see nothing from that, although we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on it. On the other hand, when it comes to a few billion for science research, then all of a sudden that is where we want to cut back. Consistently, this Congress is finding that the places it wants to cut are in science, and I think that is a shame." REP. HOWARD WOLPE (D-Mich.): "After the SSC is commissioned, its operating costs will swamp the high-energy physics budget. The entire budget request for all other high-energy physics accelerator facilities is approximately $516 million in fiscal year 1992. The projected annual cost of operating the SSC after it is commissioned is $380 million, in fiscal 1992 dollars. That is 74 percent of the entire budget for all of the accelerator labs. DOE concedes that some existing facilities will have to be closed in order to manage this budget drain. If the costs of a second large detector, which could cost up to a billion dollars, roll into the operating years, the annual operating costs will increase even more. "How many more times must we fall for the same kind of wallet-on-a-string trick? Must this body always allow billions of dollars to be squandered on a project before we can stand up and say, `No more'? This amendment affords us an opportunity to be honest with the taxpayers and honest with ourselves before billions of dollars are wasted." REP. JOE BARTON (R-Texas): "I am somewhat befuddled by the debate that has gone on with regard to the Slattery amendment. The first year we had this debate, I felt some of the cost concerns and technology concerns were valid and needed to be checked out. The second year we had basically the same debate. I thought perhaps that some members had not been listening from the year before. This year we are having basically the same debate, and I have decided that, obviously, those of us who support the project have an inability to communicate, because the issues are the same, the arguments are the same, and the facts are the same. "The SSC is the most audited, reviewed science project in the history of the federal government. In the last year there have been four independent cost estimates. The Department of Energy reviewed every one of those estimates. They decided that the $8.25 billion estimate is the most valid estimate. Within that estimate is a contingency of $843 million. In order to use that contingency, the scientists and engineers that want to spend more money have to go to a work change committee. They have to present the case for increasing the expense of the project. That has already been done several times. The work change committee has yet to approve a cost increase of what is actually being done." REP. GEORGE BROWN (D-Calif.): "There is no doubt in the scientific community of the value of this project. There is some division within the scientific community as to the apportionment of funds between large science projects such as this and smaller projects, which are in the province of individual investigators or small teams. It is my opinion that this division within the scientific community is not all that meritorious, since the management of this project has made a very real effort to make sure that there was the widest possible involvement of scientists throughout the country in the development of this project. "Where are our priorities? I can tell you that, unless we reverse our priorities in the areas of research and development, this nation will continue to decline as a world leader. What this amendment proposes to do is to make another serious cut in that investment, and it is not the only cut which we will consider as additional appropriations bills are brought before us. "I would be much more swayed by [Slattery's] argument if any of this money that is saved would go to other science projects. None of it goes. None of it. It will go into something else. It does not help our science posture as a result of that. [He] will not necessarily get this money that is being cut out of the SSC going into small-science projects. It just disappears." REP. DON RITTER (R-Pa.): "This is the wrong investment for America. It is coming at the wrong time. Here we are investing in a great, wonderful [project], and I do not deny the scientific merits of this project, they are all there. However, do we really have a problem in high-energy physics in America? Is that what is keeping our workers from competing in Cleveland and Bethlehem [Pa.]? No. The investment we need is to get the technology that underpins our companies and their workers in the global competitive battle. It is transferring technology to our small- and medium-sized business and manufacturers in a way that accelerates getting on-the-shelf technology off the shelf and into our companies." REP. BILL SARPALIUS (D-Texas): "I look at the SSC as an investment in the future. Imagine what it could do by compressing energy. Our kids will be able to see a battery about this size [his fingers a few inches apart] that will have enough energy to operate an automobile. One a little larger will provide enough energy to heat and cool our homes. Look what it could do to the medical industry, where you could stand in front of an X-ray machine that can find any tumors or cancers in your body without ever using a knife. The Japanese have developed a Dick Tracy watch that has a telephone in it, but they cannot put in on the market because they do not have a battery small enough to use in it. We will be able to develop many, many industries by compressing energy." REP. MARTIN FROST (D-Texas): "The SSC is about future economic growth and technological leadership gained from advances in science and engineering. Those advocating SSC cuts tend to forget just how important the SSC will be to our nation in terms of its potential scientific and engineering contributions." REP. PETE GEREN (D-Texas): "The SSC is a living, growing laboratory that has already brought us advances in cancer treatment and plastics technology. The SSC is expected to bring this country advances not only in cancer and other medical research, but also in electronics, transportation, fiber optics, data processing, and energy." REP. DENNIS ECKART (D-Ohio): "We know that much of the medicine that has been talked about, the advances that have come, have come from [Fermilab], which came dangerously close to closing. We have heard the proponents tell us that the SSC will cure everything except the heartbreak of psoriasis. "The fact of the matter is, the SSC will not make one person well in this country. Mapping the human gene will. Creating diamond films or conductivity of polymers, artificial intelligence, biotechnology--all these will make people well. "Near-term benefits and near-term costs, that is what this debate is all about. And the fact of the matter is, we are great at investing in this country. What we are bad at is paying, and the SSC will not pay [off for] this nation anywhere near before it is obsolete. The fact of the matter is, the [nonhigh-energy physics] research that will come from this machine within 10 years will no longer be of scientific value." REP. BOB TRAXLER (D-Mich.): "We did not want to reduce the programs within NASA, the science programs which we think are very beneficial and very important. We made a choice to take some money and put it in the National Science Foundation science education programs. We put it into the EPA research and enforcement budget. We put it into VA medical care and VA medical research. But above all other increases, we put it into the NASA science programs, the Earth Observation System, CRAF/Cassini, and so on. "The rescoped station, in my judgment, is an excellent design. But we cannot afford the station, even if it is redesigned. Big science is really knocking out little science here. If you look closely at the proposed amendment, it goes after the science in NASA. I want to tell you that, if the station comes in, it is going to eat our lunch this year. And it is going to eat your dinner next year. If you [fund the] station, you are throwing the NASA science space programs out the window." REP. ROBERT WALKER (R-Pa.): "The original contention of the [appropriations] committee was that the space station had to be cut, because within their [the committee's] allocation they could not do everything. The fact is that NASA supports what we [the Chapman-Lowery amendment] will bring to the floor later today, and it is not devastating. Freezes are not devastating. You can, in fact, do many things within a freeze. You can, in fact, adjust programs within freezes, and, ultimately, that is what will take place. But this is not a devastating kind of thing to NASA. It is, in fact, a real way of managing within the allocation given to the committee." REP. BILL GREEN (R-N.Y.): "First, I want to make it very clear that, even without the space station, NASA will be a very robust agency with a very robust program. But to say that you are not drastically impacting NASA science programs because you are freezing them is ridiculous, and the people on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee ought to know better. The fact of the matter is that we have a number of programs at NASA which are ramping up, most notably the Earth Observation System, but also the Advanced X-ray Astronomy facility, CRAF/Cassini, and others. They know that a freeze, in essence, guts these programs, because these programs are predicated on rising budgets as they mature." REP. MARCY KAPTUR (D-Ohio): "Today's vote on the space station is really not a vote about U.S. commitment to space exploration. We all share that commitment. It really is a vote about how best to achieve the finest space science and exploration, how to make the best set of scientific choices, and how best to invest in U.S. competitiveness under tight budget restraints." REP. JIM CHAPMAN (D-Texas): "In order to maintain our competitiveness, our children must be educated in math and science. Space station Freedom is a powerful inspiration for America's young people, and allows them to see future opportunities for math and science. Freedom will also provide a first-class laboratory in space for materials science, microgravity research, biotechnology, life sciences research, and medical research. Such research can lead to new medicines to treat diseases like cancer and AIDS. "The Augustine Committee [an advisory committee to NASA chaired by Martin Marietta Corp. CEO Norman Augustine] noted that space science should be given priority, but within the context of a balanced space program. The [appropriations] committee bill destroys this balance. It tells the space science community, in effect, that they can get their funding only if they help kill the space station and the manned space program." REP. RICHARD DURBIN (D-Ill.): "I have listened with great care as my colleagues have described the fact that our failure to fund space station Freedom would somehow make the United States a second-class nation. I wonder if we inspire any other nation with a space station that has little scientific value. If we are truly interested in science rather than bragging rights, then we cannot support the Chapman amendment. If we are prepared to admit that every big-science project in America is not necessarily virtuous or wise, then we cannot support the Chapman amendment. Our priorities in America have to change, and what is happening in this appropriations bill is a suggestion that the change has to take place with the multibillion-dollar projects that have endured massive cost overruns and are out of control." REP. LAWRENCE COUGHLIN (R-Pa.): "The only reason to build the space station in its present configuration is as a platform to support a manned Moon-Mars mission, estimated to cost $400 billion. All of our other scientific missions--space science, earth science, life science, microgravity research--can be performed in other ways." REP. GEORGE BROWN (D-Calif.): "I know my good friend [Coughlin] feels very strongly about this, but I have been looking at the scientific results of the Apollo mission, and, very frankly, there are none. The Soviets did an unmanned lander, which took some soil samples back to the Soviet Union, and got all of the science that we did with the Apollo mission. Certainly, science was not the main reason for sending the Apollo mission up. I agree that science investment is the primary reason [for the space station], but I would like to point out that the United States became the world's leader in space by a mission that did not do any science, and the Russians, who did the science without a manned mission, were relegated to second position in the world." REP. HOWARD WOLPE (D-Mich.): "The space station, a big-science project in the worst sense, will squeeze out a variety of small-science projects far more valuable to the scientific endeavor and, particularly, to the training of the next generation of American scientists. Why is the funding of small science so critical? Without an adequate small-science base, the research infrastructure of our nation's colleges and universities will wither, compromising not only the development of future scientists, but also the general education of all our college and university students. There are other, equally compelling, arguments for protecting small science from the voracious appetite of the big-science projects. Small science is flexible--it is easier to shift direction as results shift; and it is effective--nearly all Nobel laureates work in small science. And small science does lead to technological advances as readily, or more readily, than does big science. TVs and VCRs, the computer, lasers, monoclonal antibodies did not come from big science." REP. BROWN: "I have high respect for [Wolpe]. But despite that, we disagree once in a while. We do not disagree about the importance of science. But the gentleman has set the standard that the scientists should have the prevailing voice with regard to the space station. "I can tell the gentleman, through my 25 years of experience, that the scientists have never supported, as a majority, manned space flight, and they do not today. Their criticism is quite right, for them: It does not produce as much science as they would like." REP. DON RITTER (R-Pa.): "The space program is not a basic research program. It is not an academic program. It is not more research grants for university professors or research institutions. It is a program where men and women explore space. It is a program which has rocket ships, and it is a program where these ships dock in space. It is a program that, at its very heart, is exploration. It is the movement of our human race off this planet and into space and beyond and to other worlds."

Why Should We Fund The SSC?

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