OCR Text |
Show 1 Wesfem Resources ,,. WRAP-UP 1981 budget, part 2 f By Helcne C. Monberg Washington-The 1981 budget is at a scord level of $36.1 billion for research :'nd development (R&D) projects to tudy such topics as acid rain and how c imorove weather forecasting and rvly warnings of severe storms and :ther natural catastrophes. jror the first time industry and the overnment are to cooperate on two ' ujor long-term (10 year) R&D pro-Sets: pro-Sets: drilling along the ocean margins i?n(j working on making autos more ;ijel-efficient. Several government Agencies are cooperating in the use of Stellites for land use management, Conservation of natural resources and i;rop forecasting. 'Since the government got into basic " search in 1950 with the creation of the 1'ational Science Foundation, the R&D gadget has grown from $3.1 billion in 'j53 to an estimated $36.1 billion fiscal I81. The 1981 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1980. For the current 1980 fiscal year ie R&D budget is estimated to be $32 llion; it began on Oct. 1, 1979. Dr. Frank Press, the President's ad-ser ad-ser on science and technology, said at ie R&D press briefing the 1981 budget nphasized basic research. It is up 12 rcent over the 1980 basic research ogram, and the overall 1981 R&D idget is 13 percent higher than the 80 R&D program, he stated.'When in-jtion in-jtion is squeezed out of these figures, e increase for basic research is 3 per-mt per-mt and for all R&D is 4 percent, accor-ng accor-ng to calculations by the Council of conomic Advisers. The budget defines basic research as scovering fundamental knowledge, ich as the nature of coal or the beginn-g beginn-g of the universe. Applied research is itting that knowledge to work to meet ecific needs. And development is (signing, engineering and monstrating new devices, systems id methods based on that knowledge. The heightened interest in R&D is due concern that this country is losing its idership in the fields of R&D. So the il budget increases in R&D are signed to reverse a slowing down of nerican innovations. 'I believe that these are among the Bt important expenditures that we n make," the President stated in his n. 28 budget message to Congress.1' '1 "he payoff, particularly in basic search, is long-term, but immense, e benefit today in new industries, in illions of jobs, in lives saved, and in es protected from the investments science made decades ago. We must r ntinue such ' investments today to ap similar returns tomorrow." DOD GETS LARGEST SHARE OF R&D PIE As usual the Department of Defense OD) gets the largest portion of the ID pie in fiscal 1981. As measured in ligations, DOD's share is about 45 rcent of the total and 69 percent of the crease over the 1980 program. DOD 11 increase its support for basic search by 21 percent, from $431 ; illion to $523 million, primarily in the Vsical sciences. It will start to i wvelop the C-X, a new cargo transport Tcraft, to speed rapid deployment I pabilities of U.S. forces, and continue !U-scale development of the MX inter- - ntinental ballistic missile, to be plac-I plac-I first in Utah and Nevada. Two other big R&D projects in the Bl budget are the 10-year cooperative ojects with industry, altho the 1981 "ding requests are modest. For the . ocean margin drilling program, ch is expected to cost $700,000,000 r a 10-year period, the government seeking only $10 million 1981 in the Hional Science Foundation budget to t the project underway. a ?e ocean margins are the regions - ween the continental shelf and the P ocean abyss, and they are one of frontiers on earth to be ex-ired. ex-ired. For knowledge of the margins emselves and for what they might la m petroleum and other mineral serves. Petroleum companies will be NSF's wsU-ial partners in this effort. Those " have "expressed intent in par-W'ng...are par-W'ng...are Atlantic Richfield, Consul Con-sul Oil Co., Exxon Corp., Mobil Oil ?. Phillips Petroleum Co., Stan-"'I Stan-"'I Corp. of California, Sunmark ESa" C" Un'n 0il C- f J Project is designed to advance P ocean drilling technology from eet to about 13,000 feet, and to e ay to make drilling down to ,vw (eet below the sea floor feasible, SW Stated on Jan- 26- An thi??-eSman on Feb- 6 the cost r?00 million effort will be split file cooperative automotive research tL Tn federal gvern-and gvern-and industry is estimated to cost lion ov Ween 1800 miIlion t0 I J illion rf 8 10"year P5"01' with 20 lerai Z n and several other a agencies will be involved in the dWv"?PrVe the fuel efficiency y of car and light trucks, in particular. The government money is expected to come from the energy windfall profits pro-fits tax, according to the budget. The auto industry is expected to come up with $500 million of its own funds for this project. In the 1981-85 period, autos are expected to meet increasingly strict fuel economy standards 22 miles per gallon in 1981 and 27.5 miles per gallon in 1985, according to Transportation Secretary Neil Godlschmidt. AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES Five departments and agencies are starting a six-year program to make agriculture and resources inventory surveys thru aerospace remote sensing (AgRISTARS). They are the Departments Depart-ments of Agrigulture, Commerce and Interior, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Agency for International Development (AID). Under this expanded and coordinated effort, the 1981 budget totals $51 million; spending in the same general area is pegged at $31 million in 1980. This is one of the most interesting R&D projects in the budget. It will monitor crop conditions all over the world. The budget explained : 'This initiative will place emphasis on the evaluation of remote sensing data to improve our ability to forecast worldwide production produc-tion of crops such as corn, wheat, soybeans, soy-beans, barley and rice. Data from spacecraft have the potential for determining deter-mining conditions early in the growing season, monitoring progress of the crop and accessing the extent of crop damage caused by adverse weather conditions or blight. Early assessment of the likely status of foreign crops is important in agricultural planning in the United States." That means this government wants to know, in particular, the status of crops and potential crop failures in the Soviet Union as early as possible. The program will also "Assist in natural resource inventories and pollution pollu-tion detection activities," according to the USDA budget analysis, which pegged pegg-ed USDA's contribution to the effort in. 1981 at $1.5 million. .Three- government agencies, the Department of Commerce thru the National Na-tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ad-ministration (NOAA), DOD and NASA, are to initiate a national oceanic satellite system in 1981 at a total cost of $24 million, of which $6.4 million has been assigned to NOAA as the lead agency. The budget explained, "This operational demonstration system would provide global ocean data for use in marine weather forecasting and climate studies, marine transportation and defense applications." This is expected ex-pected to sharpen up the weather forecasters' early warnings of hurricanes hur-ricanes and other natural disasters which start in the oceans. The U.S. Forest Service in the USDA received a 12 percent increase in its research effort for fiscal 1981, a $J3.4 million increase over the 1980 program , totalling $112.1 million to $125.5 million. Every single category was increased, but big increases went to surface environment en-vironment and mining studies directed at "mined-land areas, specifically oil shale and arid lands," up 39; forest engineering, up 31; forest products utilization, up 17.6; wildlife, range and fish habitat, up 15.7; renewable resources economics, up 15.4; and timber management, up 14.5. The biggest dollar increase, $3 million, went to timber mangement and the next largest went to forest products utilization, at $2.7 million. USFS Chief Max Peterson is particularly interested in better utilization of all forest products including residues from timber cuts for a broad range of uses including as an : energy fuel. WHAT IS ACID RAIN? Forests, in particular, are subject to damage from acid rain. So are property, proper-ty, crops and wildlife, according to the 1981 budget, so the President in October 1979 launched a 10-year research program pro-gram "to assess the problem of acid rain and seek methods to prevent it." , But just what acid rain is and what research is being done in the area are topics being variously interpreted by several agencies. Generally speaking, acid rain is rain that carries pollutants in the upper atmosphere down with it. Generally, it appears that the total budget requests to do research in this area are about $16 million in 1980 and will be about the same amount in 1981. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was unable to give Western Resources Wrap-up (WRW) on Feb. 6 a total figure for the multi-agency multi-agency effort to study acid rain. Ten agencies are involved. NSF's 1980 budget for acid rain research totals $8.8 million, and it will be about $9 million 1981, NSF sources told WRW on Feb. 6. EPA's acid rain research budget is $5.5 million in 1980 and it is $6.9 million in 1981, EPA source said on Feb. 6. They are doing most of the work in this field. The Department of Energy R&D budget for 1981 totals $4,092,000,000, a $362,000,000 increase in the 1980 program. pro-gram. It is supported by a 1981 R&D budget of $154 million of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the 1981 R&D budget-'of $110 million for the Bureau of MinesbothiJnterior Department Depart-ment agencies., r " The USGS R&D stresses improved technology to explore the submerged continental shelf and a better understanding of the hydrology of ground water "including the effects of underground waste storage" on underground water. It is also continuing continu-ing its earthquake research. The Bureau of Mines R&D Program is "to investigate new technologies for surface and underground coal (mining), (min-ing), as well as non fuel mining and mineral processing. "The Bureau's R&D effort is a plan to improve the extraction, ex-traction, processing and use of non-energy non-energy minerals to assure an adequate supply of raw materials to meet expanding expan-ding national needs." These budgets are about the same as their 1980 R&D programs. |