House Votes to Drop Costly Super Collider : Science: Federal deficit is a key to defeat of $8-billion atom smasher in Texas. Senate could still revive funding.
The House Wednesday night voted to kill the controversial $8-billion atom smasher in Texas, a massive research project that critics said was rife with cost overruns and draining funds from more important scientific endeavors.
The 232-181 vote, whose surprisingly large margin stunned supporters and opponents, came after more than three hours of heated debate. The impassioned arguments demonstrated that many members who voted against the so-called superconducting super collider were swayed by a newfound resolve to balance the federal budget.
“We’ve got to stop spending money we don’t have on projects we don’t need,” said Rep. Dennis E. Eckart (D-Ohio), a leading super collider opponent. He and several other project foes said killing the collider would save as much as $10 billion.
But supporters mourned the potential demise of a project designed to study the basic forces of nature, contending that its death would mean the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. In addition, they said, it would also mean that America has conceded to Japan, Europe and even Russia its once-undisputed position as the world leader in high-energy physics, a prestigious if arcane field of science.
“It would create chaos. It will be a disaster,” said Rep. Tom Bevill (D-Ala.), a super collider supporter.
Of the estimated $850 million already spent on the project, a total of more than $530 million, representing 19,000 contracts, has been awarded to thousands of researchers and industrial firms in at least 46 states, including California.
The fate of the super collider now moves to the Senate, which could still vote to fund the project, forcing a conference with House members to resolve the issue.
When then-President Ronald Reagan first endorsed the super collider in the mid-1980s, its cost was estimated at $4 billion. The figure has since grown to as much as $11 billion, one recent government study said.
The Bush Administration had been banking on receiving as much as $1.7 billion in foreign contributions for the project, but so far only India has given a firm commitment of $50 million.
The stunning 51-vote margin against the super collider sent an ominous message to backers of other large science projects, most notably the $30-billion space station being planned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
“If I were pressed, I would have said that the space station was more likely (than the super collider) to go. There is very little science to come out of the space station, which competes directly with the National Science Foundation--which is critical to every field of science, including high-energy physics,” said Robert Park, director of the American Physical Society, who backs the super collider but nevertheless has criticized it for diverting funds from other scientific research.
The House vote, Park said, “certainly indicates how deeply the problem with the federal deficit is going to affect some of our most important institutions.”
In a telephone interview after the vote, Russ Wylie, a spokesman for the super collider, said: “Obviously, we are disappointed . . . . But this is the first step in a lengthy budget-setting process . . . . We hope more reflective consideration will lead to restoration of funds.
“It is important to understand fully what will come to pass if the super collider project is in the end not supported. This nation’s leadership in the most fundamental of the sciences, high-energy physics, will pass to others. The technological innovations that will result from the building of the super collider will be lost.”
The House vote came during the debate on a $21.8-billion appropriations bill for energy and water programs that included $484 million for the super collider. Later in the night, the House overwhelmingly approved the overall bill.
The amendment to kill the super collider was sponsored by a bipartisan group of House members. It eliminates all funding for the super collider except for $34 million that would allow the Energy Department to begin closing it down.
Among the likely beneficiaries of the vote are Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., home of the nation’s largest operating particle accelerator. The Bush Administration budget proposals for fiscal 1993 would have cut its funding by $15 million. Another is the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California, which was facing budget cuts of 10% in 1993 and even deeper cuts later.
The super collider was designed to be the world’s largest scientific instrument--a powerful, state-of-the-art particle accelerator enabling physicists to explore the fundamental properties of matter and energy, possibly uncovering clues about the origins of the universe.
Using about 10,000 magnets still being developed, it would hurl beams of protons around a 54-mile oval tunnel underground at nearly the speed of light, forcing them eventually to collide. The resulting debris could be studied and analyzed by special detectors.
Although super collider proponents conceded Wednesday night that there would be few immediate practical benefits, they argued that knowledge gained from exploring atoms and particles has formed the bases of many “spinoff” technologies now common in everyday life. Among them are television, computers and assorted medical diagnostic and therapeutic instruments.
During House debate, super collider proponents also argued vehemently for the project on purely economic grounds. “It’s not just a Texas project,” said Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside), noting that important super collider components were to be manufactured in California. “It’s a national project.”
But the argument by Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), a onetime super collider champion who has soured on the project, carried the day. “The project does represent good science,” he said. “But it does not represent priority science.”
Energy Secretary James D. Watkins said in a statement that he was “deeply disappointed by the House action. It does not demonstrate good stewardship of our nation’s scientific and technology research base that the public has entrusted to the government.”
