A Senate Victory Would Turn The Tide After House Defeat

Abstract

Last month, when the House of Representatives votes to delete $620 million from the 1994 federal budget for the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), the margin of victory, 280 to 150, seemed sufficient to sound the death knell for the enormous Texas project. But a Science poll of the House members who switched sides since last year, when a similar motion passed by only 232 to 181, found that most regarded their vote as a mandatory attack on the federal deficit. They say they still approve of the big physics project and that its important for the government to continue supporting basic science. In fact, the $10 billion SSC could well recover from its near-death condition by fall. For SSC supports, the shallowness of the opposition is bolstered by the fact that Congress writes its spending bills in a way that stacks the deck against opponents of the project. By law, appropriations bills are introduced in the House and cobbled together by one of 13 subcommittees. Once the bills reach the floor of each body, they can still be amended. That's what happened on 24 June, when House opponents of the SSC won approval to eliminate money to continue building themore » SSC and, instead, to spend $220 million to terminate the project. Now the bill moves to the Senate, which for the last 2 years has soundly defeated amendments to kill the SSC. After the Senate acts, any differences in the two bodies versions of the $22 billion energy and water bill, of which the SSC is only a small part, must be resolved by a conference committee consisting of an equal number of members from the House and Senate chosen by party leaders. Conferences are traditionally selected from among those on the relevant appropriating and authorizing committees, which strongly support the SSC.« less