Collider Bidding Process Revamped, Deadline Put Off

With less than three weeks remaining before states were to bid to become the location for the $4.4-billion superconducting super collider, federal officials Wednesday revamped the project’s controversial bid process.

The changes, which discount the financial advantages of wealthy states and postpone the deadline another month, surprised and confused officials writing bids for California and other leading contenders. Most declined to comment on the new rules until they consult with the federal Department of Energy.

However, the changes delighted California’s state legislators, who were in danger of causing the state to miss the original Aug. 3 deadline because of a political impasse over the mandatory participation of women and minority contractors in the massive construction project.

“In light of where we are now,” said state Sen. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove), referring to the impasse and a monthlong legislative recess scheduled to begin Friday, “we could not have asked for a more fortuitous development from the federal government.”

The other leader of the collider-financing effort, Assemblyman Sam Farr (D-Carmel), added: “I’m not sure we could have worked it out” before the recess--or before the federal deadline.

The new deadline in Sept. 3, more than two weeks after the Legislature will reconvene on Aug. 17. Department of Energy spokesman Phil Keif said the delay will not set back the final selection of a collider site. A preferred alternative will be announced next July and confirmed in January of 1989, before President Reagan is scheduled to leave office.

The collider, or SSC, is a 53-mile-around, oval-shaped race track that would focus counter-rotating beams of subatomic particles into head-on collisions. The crash would break down the particles and should help scientists discover the fundamental building blocks of all matter and perhaps understand the origin of the universe.

California intends to nominate two locations for the collider--one east of Stockton in San Joaquin County and the other circling the city of Davis.

The late changes in the collider bidding process were imposed on the Energy Department by Sen. Pete V. Dominici (R-New Mexico).

The bid invitation originally stated that federal officials would consider not only the suitability of each nominee, but also “any financial and other incentives offered to defray the cost of construction and operation.”

Small-population states, including New Mexico, argued that this would give the project to a state willing and able to essentially buy the machine rather than the state best qualified to accommodate it.

To reduce the financial advantages of California, Texas and other wealthy states, Dominici amended last week’s federal supplemental appropriations act to block consideration of direct financial aid from the states. This, he said in his amendment, is “to ensure that the Department of Energy bases it final decision on where to site the facility solely on the suitability of the site.”

Dominici said he is “relieved, pleased and gratified” by the new rules.

Those new rules, however, will not entirely hobble wealthy states, federal officials made clear.

In a letter announcing the bid changes, L. Edward Temple Jr., executive director of the Department of Energy’s SSC Site Task Force, noted that floor debate over Dominici’s amendment made clear that the federal government still may consider a bidding state’s proposal for “infrastructure improvements.”

These, he explained, could include such things as donating thousands of acres of land for a central collider campus and other buildings, as well as access roads, sewer systems, water pipes and electrical transmission lines.

Farr and Garamendi said Wednesday that this would let California keep its offer package at or near the $560-million figure already mentioned, although they said the figure could also be trimmed back. Voter approval is required for the bonds to fund this package.