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Appropriations bill upsets agencies The House Appropriations Subcommit­tee on Veteran Affairs, Housing & Urban Development & Independent Agencies has passed a spending bill for fiscal 2000 that has upset a number of agency chiefs. The subcommittee must deal with some severe restrictions on amounts it could approve for discretionary spending be­cause of the Balanced Budget Act, and the result is lower budgets. For NSF, the subcommittee approved $3.65 billion, about $24 million less than for fiscal 1999. NSF Director Rita R. Colwell voiced her disappointment by noting that "the U.S. cannot do 21st-century science and engi­neering with a 20th-century budget" For NASA, the subcommittee cut $1.4 billion, much of it from science programs. NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin called the cuts "devastating." And for EPA, the sub­committee reduced the budget to $7.3 bil­lion, $277 million less than fiscal 1999. EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner said the bill, among other things, "robs environmental cops of any basic authori­ty by cutting funds for hiring experts crit­ical to investigating and prosecuting envi­ronmental cases." On top of these cuts, House members have added to the bill more than 200 pork-barrel projects, worth a total of $350 million.^

NIH panel proposes changes for peer review An advisory group to NIH's Center for Scientific Review (CSR), the center re­sponsible for evaluating about three-fourths of funding applications received by the agency, has proposed changes for the way peer review is conducted there. The Panel on Scientific Boundaries for Review, chaired by National Academy of Sciences President Bruce M. Alberts, published a summary of its plan in Sci­ence [285, 666 (1999)]. CSR had identi­fied concerns about the way peer review sections are set up, including the lack of appropriate sections for newly emerging fields and the too-narrow focus of some review committees. "Many researchers fear that conservatism in the system and an undue requirement for preliminary data discourage innovation," the panel

wrote. The group recommends that NIH set up 21 integrated review groups— based on bodily system or disease cate­gories—that are capable of reviewing re­search from basic to clinical. It also rec­ommends that extramural researchers get involved in scientifically related study sections for the review groups.^

Big drop proposed for lead reporting level EPA has proposed substantially lowering the threshold at which industries are re­quired to report lead emissions under the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). Compa­nies manufacturing or using lead in quan­tities of more than 10 lb per year would be required to report environmental releas­es under the proposal. The threshold cur­rently is 10,000 lb per year. The proposed level would require 15,000 U.S. facilities to prepare new lead emissions reports, out of 70,000 now reporting under TRI, according to EPA staff. The proposal is part of EPA's new emphasis on persis­tent, bioaccumulative toxic chemicals that do not break down quickly or easily in the environment The proposal would affect nonferrous smelters, coal-burning power plants, pulp mills, refineries, and other industrial facilities.^

Senate roundtable debates availability of research data The question of who should pay for fulfill­ing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to research data used to create federal regulations under the so-called Shelby amendment was the topic of a Senate Science & Technology Cau­cus roundtable last week. The caucus is a bipartisan group of senators led by Sens. BUI Frist (R-Tenn.) and Joseph I. Iieber-man (D-Conn.) who are interested in pro­moting progress and innovation by ad­vancing science and technology issues. Roundtable panelists were Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.); Donald N. Langen-berg, chancellor of the University of Maryland; James T. O'Reilly, professor of law at the University of Cincinnati; and ACS President Ed Wasserman, science adviser in DuPont Central Research & Development The scientific panelists ar­gued that pressure for FOIA requests could seriously hamper research, but O'Reilly says the system has adequate

protection to prevent privacy problems. The subject of who pays for the informa­tion remains unresolved, although those requesting the data are usually required to pay the cost of copying and processing records.^

Misconduct ruling draws media attention A misconduct ruling by the Office of Re­search Integrity at the Department of Health & Human Services is receiving at­tention in the media. The ORI ruling [Fed. Reg., June 17, page 32503] stated that Robert P. Liburdy, a cell biologist formerly at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, "engaged in scientific mis­conduct . . . by intentionally falsifying and fabricating data and claims that were re ported in two scientific papers." liburdy has agreed to retract one figure from one of the articles and two figures from the other and to make no applications for fed­eral grants for three years. The claims made in these articles were considered important when published in 1992 be­cause they purported to link electromag­netic fields and calcium signaling, a fun­damental cell process. Investigators at ORI say liburdy eliminated data that did not support his conclusions. liburdy is defending his work, saying that no one has challenged his raw data, only the way in which he graphed it, which is open to interpretation. He has not retracted the conclusions of the articles.^

Government Roundup • The Commerce and State Depart­ments have issued proposed regulations implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention. These are in the July 21 is­sue of the Federal Register, page 39194. Comments must be received by Aug. 20. • The United Nations Environment Program's Division of Technology, In­dustry & Economics has published a comprehensive "Handbook on Data Re­porting under the Montreal Protocol." UNEP says nations need to give more consideration to the importance of data reporting. • The Energy Department is forming

two new research centers with $9 million of funding over three years under its glo­bal climate change program to study car­bon sequestration on land and in the ocean. Each center will be a consortium of universities led by DOE laboratories.^

AUGUST 2,1999 C&EN 1 9

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