SSC Critics Continue Opposition
Opponents of the Superconducting Super Collider are continuing to move against the SSC on a number of fronts while Congress is in recess. The month of September is shaping up as a critical time for the future of the collider.
As previously reported (see FYIs #102 and #105), House SSC opponents are trying to prevent a repeat of last year’s conference committee action on the energy appropriations bill. Despite an initial House vote last year terminating the collider, House conferees later voted for SSC funding. The final bill, containing $517 million for the collider, passed the House, to the bitter outrage of SSC opponents. Earlier this year, the House voted 280-150 to terminate the collider. On August 9, SSC opponents Reps. Jim Slattery (D-Kansas) and Sherwood Boehlert (R-New York) presented a letter to House Speaker Thomas Foley stating that the “clear and overwhelming position of the House must not be ignored by the conference committee.” This letter was signed by 117 House members, an impressive showing. It cites a House rule that the majority of House conferees on a conference should generally support the House position. The letter then requests that special conferees who support SSC termination be appointed to the conference. This move will run into certain opposition from the members of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, all of whom support the collider. The letter warns, “We will make every effort to defeat any conference report, continuing resolution or other measure that includes funding for the Super Collider.”
In looking ahead to September, an assumption can probably be made (although not with a huge margin of confidence) that the Senate will support SSC funding. Its version of H.R. 2445, the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill, will then conflict with the House version.
Under this scenario, the rules of the House of Representatives, while arcane to the average observer, will be critical to the fate of the SSC. Speaker of the House Foley appoints the conferees. House rules dictate, as noted in one congressional publication, that “the Speaker must name Members who are primarily responsible for the legislation and must include, to the fullest extent feasible, the principal proponents of the major provisions of the bill as it passed the House.” Here lies the conflict facing Speaker Foley, because while the members of the appropriations subcommittee are primarily responsible for the bill, they are not the principal proponents of the bill “as it passed the House"--at least as it pertains to the SSC. This is the heart of the Slattery/Boehlert letter to Speaker Foley.
If Foley responds to this letter affirmatively, House SSC opponents will be in a position to at least negotiate downward the Senate’s SSC funding level in the final version. They could also try to delete all money in the final bill, although Senator J. Bennett Johnston (D-Louisiana), certain to be on the conference, would be an extremely formidable obstacle. If Foley ignores the Slattery/Boehlert request, House SSC opponents are likely to mount a very vigorous effort to defeat the final conference report (or appropriations bill.)
Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary and House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D-Michigan) have publicly exchanged views about a recent O’Leary statement. At an August 4 hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (see FYI #106), O’Leary said “the project is on schedule, and, I believe, on budget.” On August 10, Dingell released a letter in which he said DOE staff had confirmed a $2 billion potential cost overrun in the SSC. O’Leary replied that this figure referred to a “tendency” to cost overruns, and not actual overruns. Although this is not of overly great significance, it does not help proponents of the collider.
All of this is supposed to be resolved by midnight on September 30, the last day of the current fiscal year. Predicting what SSC opponents may be able to do in the Senate is difficult. One thing is certain: SSC opponents in the House are ready and waiting.
