piner@pur-phy.UUCP (Richard Piner) (02/15/86)
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 1986 1:23 PM EST Msg: CGIG-2182-7547
From: RPARK
To: WHATSNEW
CC: RPARK
Subj: What's New, 14 February 1986 Washington, D.C.
1. DOE-SUPPORTED RESEARCH FACILITIES will be required to
accept classified work according to a new DoE policy. DoE
has been sulking since 1983 when they were rebuffed in their
attempt to use the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
to do classified work on detectors used in nuclear weapons
testing. 200 Stanford scientists signed a petition to bar
the work. The new policy requires that any major DoE facility
that represents a unique research capability must accept
contractual provisions allowing for the possibility of
classified research. Initially, the DoE sought to issue a
regulation to this effect, but the outcry from universities
persuaded the DoE to follow the less public route of contract
negotiations. The new policy could create a serious dilemma
for universities with strict prohibitions against classified
research that have aspirations for major new facilities.
2. THE PROPOSED REVISION OF CIRCULAR A-21, which sets the
policy for overhead on university research, was announced
this week by the Office of Management and Budget (see What's
New, 31 Jan 86). The revision drops all pretense of the
long-standing policy that the federal government bear its
full share of the cost of the university research it
supports. The revision fixes the administrative portion of
the overhead at 26% of modified total direct costs. This
figure is based on average rates over a 5-year period, which
may have some tenuous rationale, but effective 1 Apr 87, the
proposed revision would arbitrarily reduce the figure to 20%.
Moreover, the expected sweetening in the form of eliminating
requirements for faculty effort reporting and cost sharing is
nowhere to be seen. University administrators, already
traumatized by weeks of fretting over the consequences of
Gramm-Rudman, may be forced to re-think whether they can
afford to expand research. OMB has allowed only 30 days for
comment on the proposed revision.
3. THE PRESENTATION OF DOD-SPONSORED PAPERS is to be governed
by a proposed rule just released. The wordy but relatively
innocuous rule is less noteworthy for what is says than for
what it doesn't. It began as an instruction to scientific
and technical societies on the conduct of what the DoD
euphemistically refers to as "export-controlled sessions."
Attendance at such sessions is restricted on the basis of
nationality. In September, however, the presidents of 12
societies, including the APS, signed a letter to Secretary of
Defense Weinberger making it clear that they would have no
part of restricted access meetings (See What's New,
20 Sept 85). Thus repulsed, the DoD shrank the rule to its
present essentially in-house form.
Robert L. Park (202) 429-1946
American Physical Society THAT'S ALL 2/14/86