Changes To Be Made in SSC Management
“The project is on schedule and, I believe, on budget.” - Secretary of Energy Hazel R. O’Leary
The contract to manage the Superconducting Super Collider project will be altered to bring in a contractor experienced in large-scale construction projects, Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary announced at an August 4 Senate hearing. While the current SSC prime contractor, Universities Research Association (URA), will be kept on to manage the science and science-related design of the project, O’Leary stated that URA needs help in managing the construction.
This decision by O’Leary comes as a result of a 30-day DOE review of accusations of mismanagement against URA, a consortium of 80 universities which has successfully managed DOE’s Fermilab for over 25 years. The charges were raised in reports by the General Accounting Office (GAO) and the DOE Inspector General’s office, and aired publicly at a June 30 hearing by House Energy and Commerce chairman John Dingell (D-Michigan). At that hearing a GAO official testified to the lack of an effective cost and schedule control system and warned of potential cost overruns. The DOE Inspector General presented a list of inappropriate subcontractor expenditures, including office plants, furniture, and a holiday party, which made headlines (see FYI #89.)
Last week’s Senate hearing was held by SSC proponent J. Bennett Johnston (D-Louisiana), who chairs both the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. It gave O’Leary a chance to put some concerns to rest and explain what DOE plans to do about others. O’Leary stated firmly that the project was on time, and “value has been received” for the expenditure of taxpayers’ money. She agreed, however, that the lack of a fully integrated management system needs correcting. Regarding the questionable expenditures, she stated that although the amount involved was minimal, the damage done was “immeasurable,” and she declared steps had been taken “to make sure those expenditures don’t ever occur again.” Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyoming) added drily that the amounts might be “little in the scheme of things,” but because “the whole program is beyond most political comprehension, small amounts of money spent on scandalous things is about the only part [Members of Congress] can understand.”
O’Leary received support from another witness, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg. In addition to testifying to the damage that termination of the SSC would do to the field of high energy physics, Weinberg stated that, in his opinion, the accusations of cost overruns were either “mistaken or dishonest.” Responding to charges of escalating costs by SSC foe Dale Bumpers (D-Arkansas), Weinberg claimed, “this isn’t a case of runaway costs, but runaway stretch-outs.” He contended that, aside from a cost increase in 1990 to $8.25 billion, due primarily to magnet-aperture changes, the project’s cost has only risen due to Congress’s failure to fully fund it.
In keeping with Johnston’s desire for a friendly hearing, three of the four other witnesses sang praises of the SSC. Presidential Science Advisor Jack Gibbons said it embodied “the most noble aspects of human curiosity.” Motorola chairman Robert Galvin spoke of the importance of basic science to high-technology companies like his. SSC Laboratory Director Roy Schwitters stated that while the practical applications were indefinite, the knowledge to be gained would “outlive the problems we’re wrestling with here today.”
Johnston’s one concession to the anti-SSC viewpoint was another Nobel Laureate, nuclear physicist Phillip Anderson. Anderson argued that high-energy physicists received nearly ten times more funding than researchers in other fields of science. He challenged that there are many other equally important areas of research, including evolution, the brain, the immune system, and artificial intelligence. Weinberg agreed that prioritizing between fields of science was difficult, and asked, “How do you compare the origin of life with the origin of matter?” He concluded that such prioritization is the responsibility of the federal government, and scientists have to “present the best case we can.”
The Senate floor vote on the SSC in September is expected to be close (see FYI #105.) Termination of the SSC is seen by many as a symbolic budget-cutting gesture against a project with poorly-defined payback to the taxpayer. Most of the scientific arguments have been heard before; Bumpers complained that “I don’t think anyone has learned anything here.”