Senate Votes to Restore Atom Smasher Funds

In a victory for President Bush and the scientific community, the Senate Monday voted to reverse a House decision to kill the superconducting super collider and approved $550 million to continue work on the giant atom smasher now under construction in Texas.

The approval came in a two-step process that reflected strong lobbying by the Bush Administration and by leading U.S. scientists, who had urged the Senate to revive the atom smasher to keep the United States at the forefront of research in high-energy physics.

The Senate first voted, 62 to 32, to reject a proposal to halt funding of the $8.2-billion project. That step paved the way for a voice vote later in the evening to restore most of the money requested this year for the super collider by the Bush Administration.

Even so, the eventual outcome of the debate over the world’s largest particle accelerator remained in doubt in view of the House’s surprising 232-181 vote last June to scuttle the super collider--a vote that came in part because of intensified election-year concerns over the growing federal budget deficit.

The bill containing the super collider provision is a $22-billion appropriations bill for energy and water development. It will now be sent to a Senate-House conference so differences between the two versions can be reconciled.

Senate proponents of the super collider said they expected it would survive the conference, although probably with a lower funding level, because there have been strong pressures to preserve the project since the House vote galvanized supporters in the scientific community and the Administration.

“This is the most important scientific project in America,” argued Sen. J. Bennett Johnson (D-La.), floor manager of the bill and a leading super collider advocate. “It involves breaking the basic code of the universe.”

The Bush Administration, in a statement issued by the Office of Management and Budget, had said elimination of funding for the super collider would mark a “major retreat” from U.S. leadership in superconductivity research.

So intense was the Administration’s pressure, that Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), who had voted against funding last year, switched to support the atom smasher this year. “California scientists whom I greatly respect have persuaded me to change my position,” he said. California Republican Sen. John Seymour was recorded as not voting.

Opponents, led by Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), contended the potential benefits of the project were vastly exaggerated and the eventual costs grossly underestimated.

“From a cost-effective standpoint, we simply cannot afford it at this time,” said Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

But proponents--including 31 Democrats and 31 Republicans--carried the day on a showdown over Bumpers’ proposal to terminate the project.

About $850 million already has been spent on the super collider, with $680 million of that amount in the form of contracts to researchers and construction firms in 46 states. The super collider laboratory in Waxahachie, Tex., about 30 miles south of Dallas, employs 2,000 people; jobs of another 7,000 also depend on the project. More than 100 American universities are preparing to do research with the super collider.

The collider was projected to be the world’s largest accelerator, a circular tunnel 54 miles long, that would use powerful magnets to smash sub-atomic particles into one another at high speeds to help scientists learn more about the smallest particles in the universe and the forces that influence them.

Advocates contended the super collider would help American scientists capture the lead in a vital area of research and provide technological benefits that cannot now be foreseen.

Cranston argued: “We cannot afford to forfeit our leadership in world-class science and that is what we would be doing if we killed the superconducting super collider.”

Foes, however, said the super collider would divert funds from biomedical, environmental and renewable energy research that promise more immediate payoffs for improving health and living standards.